‘Visual Team’ disapproves of Disabled Girl

Here’s an interesting tale from the great American retail chain Abercrombie & Fitch: The company is being sued $41,000 by a girl named Riam Dean (to your right, photo courtesy The Daily Mail.) Riam got a job at A&F because to interviewers she appeared to fit the the “look policy,” which states that staff must represent a ‘natural, classic American style.’ A&F learned about the disability after Dean put on the uniform, but they simply told her to put on a cardigan to hide what apparently seemed to them an ugly, disabled mess of an arm. That’s when things got weird.

‘A worker from what they call the “visual team”, people who are employed to go round making sure the shop and its staff look up to scratch, came up to me and demanded I take the cardigan off.

‘I told her, yet again, that I had been given special permission to wear it,’ she recalled.

‘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.

Miss Dean, who has just sat her final law exams, is due to take her case to the Central London Employment Tribunal later this month and is seeking damages of £25,000.

What an idiotic company; they have already been sued for $40 million the past in discrimination cases. Meh, I’ve never shopped there, but maybe this story will convince others to stop.

• The Daily Mail – Disabled shop girl now suing Abercrombie & Fitch for discrimination
• Jezebel – Abercrombie Banishes Disabled Girl
• USA Today -Abercrombie & Fitch to pay $40M to settle bias case