NBC News Farryn Johnson, 26, won a $250,000 judgment against Hooters claiming they discriminated against her for not allowing her to have blond streaks in her hair.
Joel Cairo/for New York Daily News The compnay has an Image Policy for its waitresses that sayd their haior color must be within two-shades of their skin tone.
Shame on you, Hooters.
A Maryland arbitrator awarded a former waitress $250,000 after determining the chain restaurant employed a “vague and subjective” — and racist — hair policy that explicitly directed managers to consider an employee’s skin color in determining what hair color was “right” for them.
Black waitresses at a Baltimore Hooters were the only ones subjected to the policy, abritrator Edmund Cooke Jr. ruled.
“The manager told me black people don’t have blond hair,” former server Farryn Johnson told the Daily News. “I was a little shocked. I thought maybe I had misheard him and asked him to clarify. He repeated the same statement.”
Johnson, who began worked at the Hooters restaurant in September 2012, won the award in an April 2 judgment after filing a complaint with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2013
The chain, known for its racy “Hooters Girl” uniforms that make it hard for customers’ to ignore its servers’ anatomy, restricts waitresses who color their hair from dying it too differently from their “natural” color, and their race plays a factor in that determination, according to an official policy contained in the “image policy” enforced by the Atlanta-based Hooters of America.
I was still surprised to be terminated over something that I thought was unfair. I was angry and upset to be treated like that.
Johnson, 26, who is black, asserted that the restaurant would not permit her to have blond highlights, though she argued that waitresses of other races were held to no such restriction.
Cooke ruled the restaurant violated Johnson’s rights and agreed that the policy was discriminatory against African-American women.
Johnson, who started working at the restaurant in September 2012, said she decided to get the blond highlights — as did some of her co-workers — because it was summer. She said she would not have anticipated there would be any problem when she showed up to work on June 30, 2013.
Johnson said she was told to change her hair color, and given six weeks to do so. Some non-black employees were within their rights to dye or color their hair in similar fashion, her boss said, because there are white women who naturally have those hair colors.
Johnson refused to change her hairstyle and on Aug. 12, they told her she could not return to work.
Jessica Weber Johnson got blond highlights in the summer of 2013 and ultimately lost her job over it.
“I was still surprised to be terminated over something that I thought was unfair,” she said. “I was angry and upset to be treated like that.”
The manager’s directive stemmed from the company’s “Image Policy,” which stipulates that the hair of a so-called Hooters Girl must look “styled and glamorous,” and cannot appear “bizarre, outrageous or extreme,” and cannot be colored “more than two-shades in variance” from a natural color.
Cooke, the arbitrator, said in his ruling that the language is vague and leaves enforcement to managers — who, unsure what to allow, were advised to look at photographs of women in the Hooters Image magazine and in Hooters’ marketing materials.
Johnson’s boss noted in a company log that he was confused by the policy, the arbitrator said.
“I thought the rule was hair color that fits your ethnicity,” he wrote. “Not whatever the managers say are ok.”
I thought the rule was hair color that fits your ethnicity.
Cooke ruled that many white women depicted in Hooters marketing materials wore hair colors that violated the two-shade rule; thus, he said, the action against Johnson was discriminatory.
Hooters blasted the decision, labeling it biased and “flawed.” The company said in a statement that any suggestion of discrimination against its black employees and their hairstyles could not be “further from the truth.”
A company spokeswoman told the Daily News that Hooters did not have additional comment.
Johnson’s attorney, Jessica Weber, told The News that Hooters is within its rights to have regulations governing its employees’ appearance because “attractiveness” is not a protected class like race or sex. However, the rules must be applied to all servers consistently regardless of their race.
Johnson said she was gratified than an independent arbitrator examined the evidence and ruled in her favor, but she said she is disappointed the company has not apologized or taken responsibility for its managers’ actions.
“This case was never about money,” she said. “It was about fighting for my civil rights.”
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