The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges in its lawsuit that a manager at a Chipotle restaurant in Kansas forcibly removed a Muslim employee's hijab in 2021.

A federal agency has sued the restaurant chain Chipotle, accusing it of religious harassment and retaliation after a manager at a Kansas location forcibly removed an employee’s hijab, a headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged that in 2021, an assistant manager at a Chipotle in Lenexa, Kansas, repeatedly harassed the employee by asking her to show him her hair, despite her refusal. After several weeks, the harassment culminated in him grabbing and partially removing her hijab, according to the complaint.

The manager’s “offensive and incessant requests” that she remove her hijab, and his attempt to physically take it off, were “unwelcome, intentional, severe, based on religion, and created a hostile working environment based on religion,” the complaint alleged.

  • @[email protected]
    29•1 year ago

    Chipotle’s defense is probably going to be, “We’re not responsible for the actions of individual franchise owners.”

    • @0110010001100010
      27•1 year ago

      Fun (maybe?) fact, all Chipotle restaurants are corporate owned, they don’t franchise.

    • @Potatos_are_not_friends
      8•1 year ago

      That’s always been McDonalds defense.

      “Oh, an employee took a shit in the deep fryer? We the McDonald’s corporation will write a strong letter denouncing shitting in the fryer and will forward it to the franchise owner. Now go and eat our other shit.”

    • SeaJ
      6•1 year ago

      Which, honestly, is understandable assuming they also take away the person’s franchise rights. I doubt corporate policy is to have people remove hijabs.