Fired Waitress Over Hair Color Speaks Out

Have you ever heard of being disciplined by an employer for arriving late to work? Calling in sick? Not getting the job done? How about getting fired for having the wrong hair color? Beautiful, twenty...
Fired Waitress Over Hair Color Speaks Out
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  • Have you ever heard of being disciplined by an employer for arriving late to work? Calling in sick? Not getting the job done? How about getting fired for having the wrong hair color?

    Beautiful, twenty-five-year-old Farryn Johnson was recently subjected to such a scenario where she was fired from her restaurant job, and claims it was due to the blonde highlights streaking through her hair. That’s right; she only had highlights not even a fully-dyed head of hair.

    Farryn Johnson, the former waitress for restaurant chain, Hooters, recently spoke about her experience.

    “I didn’t see that it would be a big issue just because there were a lot of other employees working at the restaurant of other races with color in their hair. For instance, there were Asian girls with red hair and Caucasian girls with black hair and blond streaks, so I didn’t think it would be a issue for the little piece of blond highlight in my hair,” Farryn Johnson said.

    Johnson has filed a lawsuit with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights, citing that she was fired from the Baltimore Inner Harbor Hooters’ due to “unnatural” hair color under claims of an “improper image”.

    According to Jessica P. Weber of Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP, who is Johnson’s attorney, Farryn was told by her supervisors that the highlights violated the company’s policy on appearance.

    The chief human resources officer for Hooters of America, Rebecca Sinclair, released a statement on behalf of the company.

    “When you’re representing an iconic brand there are standards to follow. Hooters Girls are required to be camera-ready at all times to promote the glamorous, wholesome look for which Hooters is known. Hooters adamantly denies that it has different policies and standards for hair based on race. As a global brand, Hooters embraces our culturally diverse employee base and our standards are applied impartially,” the statement read.

    What do you think? Delightfully tacky yet unrefined, or just tacky and cruel?

    [Image And Video Via YouTube]

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