Riam Dean, 22, has sued retailer Abercrombie & Fitch for over $40,000 in damages. The former clerk says A & F discriminated against her because she wears a prosthetic arm due to congenital limb deficiency. Dean, a law student, says she was told that she'd violated the company's "Look Policy" and was forced to work in a back stockroom where customers could not see her. Riam was originally hired to work on the sales floor in the trendy retailer's flagship London store.
Ms. Dean says she was told during employee training to buy a plain white cardigan to wear along with her uniform of jeans and a white polo shirt, in order to cover up the join between her prosthetic arm and the partial upper arm with which she was born. The company handbook states that employees may substitute their own clothes for a uniform as long as the clothing is "Abercrombie style." The look policy also requires "clean and natural" hair as well as fingernails worn one quarter-inch past the end of the finger.
Dean, as instructed, wore a white cardigan while working on the sales floor. She says that a member of the store's "visual team" then demanded she remove the cardigan. Ms. Dean explained that she'd been given special permission to wear it due to her prosthesis.
Then, recalls Riam, "A
few minutes later, my manager came over to me and said: 'I can't have
you on the shop floor as you are breaking the Look Policy. Go to the
stockroom immediately and I'll get someone to replace you.' I
pride myself on being quite a confident girl but I had never
experienced prejudice like that before, and it made me feel utterly
worthless. Afterwards, I telephoned the company's head
office where a member of staff asked whether I was willing to work in
the stockroom until the winter uniform arrived.That was the final straw. I just couldn't go back."
This isn't the first time Abercrombie and Fitch has been sued in regard to its Look Policy. In 2004, the retailer settled a lawsuit and paid over $40 million to plaintiffs who claimed A & F discriminated against Hispanic, black, and Asian employees. At that time, the company agreed to recruit more diverse employees and add racial diversity to its catalogs and marketing materials. Abercrombie and Fitch has also been criticized for sending recruiters to college campuses to hire attractive members of predominantly white sororities and fraternities.
What do you think? Is Abercrombie and Fitch going overboard with company policies that force a young woman with a prosthetic arm to be hidden away from customers? Or is the company merely exercising its right to present its brand in the manner that it sees fit: Clothing worn by young, attractive, able-bodied, and mostly Caucasian men and women?
