Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has agreed to pay $25,000 in compensation to settle a lawsuit filed by a Muslim woman against the company for denying her a job at their store in Oklahoma because she wore a hijab.
The settlement from the company comes less than two months after the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of Samantha Elauf stating that Abercrombie & Fitch had violated her civil rights.
Elauf in 2008 was denied a sales associate position at the company’s store in Oklahoma on the grounds that the scarf violated the company’s ‘look policy’. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which then filed a suit against the clothing chain.
According to reports, the company decided to settle after the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the company’s appeal on Monday. Further, along with paying $25,670 to Elauf the company has also been ordered to pay $18,983 in court costs.
“We were extremely pleased with the Supreme Court ruling in our favour, reinforcing our longstanding efforts to enforce Title VII’s prohibition against religious discrimination,” said EEOC General Counsel David Lopez.
Further adding, “We are now even more pleased to have final resolution of this case and to have Elauf receive the monetary damages awarded to her by a jury in 2011.”
“I was a teenager who loved fashion and was eager to work for Abercrombie & Fitch,” Elauf said in a statement. ”Observance of my faith should not have prevented me from getting a job. I am glad that I stood up for my rights, and happy that EEOC was there for me and took my complaint to the courts,” she concluded.
This is not the first time the company has faced criticism. In 2011 a Muslim woman sued Abercrombie & Fitch accusing the clothing retailer of firing her for refusing to remove her hijab. Hani Khan of San Mateo, California, alleged that store managers had told her to remove her hijab as part of the clothing chain’s “Look Policy,” the Council of American-Islamic Relation (CAIR) said in a statement.
Further, the company has paid settlements in discrimination suits, including a $50 million payment in 2005 to Hispanic, African-American and Asian job applicants in a lawsuit alleging a lack of diversity.
Muslim woman wins $25,000 from Abercrombie over discrimination case
