Worker says boss told her to remove her hijab

Stefanae Coleman noticed people looking at her differently, but she didn’t mind. It was her first time wearing a hijab to work. She expected some stares.

She did not expect to be sent home after being told by a manager that Chicken Express uniform policy forbids the religious headscarf.

The owner of the franchise where Coleman works quickly apologized for the manager’s behavior, but Coleman says she’s still uncomfortable going back to work.

“I can’t deal with being in this environment anymore,” she said. “I’m just trying to keep my head held high.”

Coleman converted to Islam in August. She started work at the Chicken Express location in Saginaw, near Fort Worth, in October, after her brother recommended it as a good place to work. At that time, she told her bosses, she would soon be wearing a headscarf — as soon as it arrived from an online order.

When she was first hired, Coleman said, she specifically looked through the employee handbook, looking for regulations about women who wear hijabs. She said she found nothing mentioning the headscarf.

“If that was going to be a problem, I wouldn’t have applied,” she said. “This is part of my religion.”

When she showed up for work with her hijab Monday, the manager told her to take it off or leave.

“Your job is your job,” he told her. “Your job has nothing to do with religion.”

“Well, I read the handbook and it doesn’t say anything about us not being able to wear religious headpieces,” she told the manager.

“It says you have to follow the Chicken Express uniform policy and it lists out what it is,” the manager told her. “It doesn’t involve anything else.”

The exchange was captured on cellphone video that Coleman posted to Twitter.

She said she walked across the street to a Subway restaurant, sat in a booth and cried. She called a Muslim friend, who encouraged her to post the videos on Twitter.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision that employers can’t force employees to remove a hijab based on dress code.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act requires employers to provide employees “reasonable accommodation without undue hardship” for religious garb.

“It’s pretty clear cut that you have to give that reasonable accommodation,” said Marwa Elbially, a Plano attorney who specializes in civil liberties of American Muslims. “Her wearing a scarf on her head doesn’t keep her from doing her job.”

The franchise owner, Brett Minnehan, called Coleman to apologize Tuesday and invited her to help create additional training to make sure similar incidents wouldn’t happen again. Minnehan’s lawyer, Rhett Warren, said Thursday that the manager who told Coleman to remove the hijab has been “reprimanded,” and that Coleman was paid for the hours she would’ve worked Monday.

Now, Coleman said, she’s considering legal action against the employer for discrimination.