Employment Law Information

A Muslim woman is suing Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel, accusing the company’s California theme park of discrimination for telling her she could not serve customers if she chose to wear a headscarf.

Imane Boudal, 26, asked her employers at Grand Californian Hotel several months ago whether they would permit her to wear a headcovering while working as a hostess, a spokeswoman for a worker’s union said.

But when no reply was forthcoming, she decided to don the headscarf anyway, timing her decision with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Leigh Shelton, a spokesman for the UNITE HERE Local 11 union said.

Many people out there, go through spiritual changes. Some people become born again; some people’s religious practices changes. Imane is no different. She wanted to wear the headscarf in public and at work, and she requested to do so at her job as a hostess server, which is essentially like a waitress, at the Grand Californian Hotel, which is owned and operated by Disney Company. She made the request in June, waited and waited, and finally she decided that she needed to start wearing it by Ramadan because of her religious practices.

In Disney’s policies there actually is a paragraph that says that any exceptions for religious purposes can be made and requested to the casting director or to HR.

“Disney further advised Boudlal that if she refused to remove her hijab, she could either work a back-of-the-house position where any customers would not see her, or else go home.”

Boudlal refused the compromise and is now bringing Disney before the US Equal Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that handles claims of workplace discrimination.

“Their offer to put me in the back is humiliating,” she said in a statement. “They’re saying because I’m Arab, because I’m Moroccan, because I’m Muslim, they don’t want to see me in the front.”

“To say that her headscarf would somehow impact guests is not only insulting to her, but is deeply offensive to the thousands of Muslims who open up their pocket-books at Disney parks and resorts every year,”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically Title 7, which guarantees her the right to religious accommodation for her sincerely held religious beliefs.