A Muslim woman is suing Disneyland, accusing the company's California theme park of discrimination for telling her she could not serve customers if she chose to wear a headscarf. Many of the customers being children, it's likely a significant number of them would be scared, which doesn't fit with the Disney image.
Imane Boudal, 26, asked her employers at Disneyland's Grand Californian Hotel several months ago whether they would permit her to wear a headcovering while working as a hostess, a spokeswoman for a worker's union said.
"Hey, y'all mind if I wear a bag over my head while I'm serving french fries?"
But when no reply was forthcoming, she decided to don the headscarf anyway, timing her decision with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Leigh Shelton, a spokesman for the UNITE HERE Local 11 union said. "Disney told Boudlal that if she wanted to work as a hostess she had to remove her hijab because it did not comply with the 'Disney Look,'" Shelton said in a statement.
The "Disney look" is kinda tailored toward not frightening children, not alienating their parents.
"Disney further advised Boudlal that if she refused to remove her hijab, she could either work a back-of-the-house position where any customers would not see her, or else go home."
So they didn't tell her she couldn't wear a bag on her head, only that she couldn't irritate the paying customers.
Boudlal refused the compromise and is now bringing Disney before the US Equal Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that handles claims of workplace discrimination. "Their offer to put me in the back is humiliating," she said in a statement. "They're saying because I'm Arab, because I'm Moroccan, because I'm Muslim, they don't want to see me in the front."
She says that like it's a bad thing.