Photo:Courtesy of Nina Burch
Courtesy of Nina Burch
A Black teenager was left stunned after being sent home from her job Chick-fil-A over her hair color. Now, she’s found another place to work.
“She said since blonde is an unnatural color to you, we’re going to have to ask you to leave and not come back until the blonde is out of your hair,” the North Carolina teen tells PEOPLE. “She said we understand that’s a long process and might not be easy, so email when you can come back.”
Autumn wasn’t sure how to respond. “This is the color of my hair," she says. “I didn’t know what they wanted me to do.”
Perplexed, she assumed she would continue with her shift and get more clarification later. Instead, she says her supervisor told her she needed to leave immediately because she was “out of dress code.”
Autumn says that according to the employee handbook she was given, the dress code only stated that “hairstyles must be neat and professional in appearance” and that “unnatural hair colors or eccentric styles (e.g. Mohawks, shaven designs, etc.) are not permitted.”
Stunned and embarrassed, Autumn called her mom, Nina Burch, to come pick her up. When Burch arrived, she says that she couldn’t help but notice that at least one worker there wasn’t sporting his natural hair color.
“I’m looking at this Caucasian boy with bleached blonde hair and black tips and I’m sure that’s not a natural hair color,” Burch says. “So this is beginning to look a little racist to me.”
Burch says that the supervisor claimed she was only following the instructions and that somebody who worked for HR had recently seen Autumn and felt she was out of compliance. When she attempted to call the HR rep, he claimed to have already told Autumn why she wasn’t in dress code.
“The only thing he told me during orientation was that I had to keep my hair off my face, which I understood and did,” says Autumn. “He didn’t say anything about hair color.”
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Burch says she explained to him that he had to give her more specifics since Autumn’s hair color was natural.
“I told him when we go home and take these braids out, when my daughter comes back, her hair is going to be this color, essentially, because this is her natural color,” Burch says. “And he kept saying refer to the handbook.”
After a discussion at home with her parents, Autumn decided to give her notice on July 14.
In the text provided to PEOPLE, Autumn wrote, “We still fail to understand why I was sent home. Blonde is a natural hair color so I am not sure who made the designation my color was unnatural to me specifically…Even when I take my braids down, my hair will still be this color as it is the hair color I was born with.”
“This situation has racist undertones and for that reason, my parents have decided I will not be returning," she added.
She has since gained new employment.
When reached for comment, Chick-fil-A told PEOPLE that “the restaurant’s Owner/Operator reached out to Autumn and told her the policy had been misinterpreted and she was welcome to come back to work at the restaurant.”
PEOPLE left messages at the Harrisburg restaurant, but the owner/operator has not responded.
“He called the day the story ran,” Burch says. “I doubt she was still on the schedule as it had been two weeks.”
Burch says they have not filed a lawsuit or retained an attorney, but they haven’t ruled out that possibility. The only legal action they have taken is filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Their interview will come up in October.“I’m now not just an average 16-year-old, I’m an average 16-year-old who has experienced first-hand racism to my face,” Autumn says. “I’ve been lucky for the majority of my life not to experience that, so it’s a shocker when it happens to you.”
source: people.com
