We are Petitioning Disney because they have discriminated against a woman wearing her hijab (Muslim head scarf) to work. The woman known as Imane Boudlal wore her headscarf as part of her religion. Imane was not permitted to wear her headscarf when working at Storyteller Café inside Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel. When her employers saw her, she was given the options of staying out of customer’s sight and working in the back or going home. When she refused to take off her headscarf she was asked to go home and did not get paid for that day. After that day they often tried to cover up her scarf by trying to make her wear something over it in order to cover it up. We are hoping to convince Disney to change their dress code policy concerning religious attire. Disney has many rules for their hairstyle or headwear policies and even though they don’t state that their workers may not wear any religious headwear, they still don’t allow it. Although Disney claims to have tried to change their policy they have failed to do so. Disney workers have suggested to allow her to wear a scarf on the condition that it have Disney characters and it be approved by a higher source of power. Nothing has yet been approved, so no progress has been made to change their dress policy.
The Disney Corporation website states that “At Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, we’ve become famous for our friendly, classic appearance. This look is not a coincidence, but a result of our cast members’ support of the Appearance Standards, or as we call it, the Disney Look.” The Disney Look for women’s hair includes hair being neatly combed, easy to maintain, confined to not be over the face. Hair should also not contain beads or ornamentations, not be shaved (including eyebrows), and must look natural at all times, without extreme color, because as Disney says, “Every detail counts.” Nowhere in the aforementioned list of requirements does it specify anything about not being allowed to cover the hair with a headscarf. By technicality, the hair would be confined, not in her face, neat, and easily maintained -- complying to all the standards for women’s hair.

The First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution bar federal and state governments from making laws or rules that specifically prohibit women from practicing hijab. In some circumstances, however, the Constitution allows neutral rules that apply to everyone, such as a rule barring all headcoverings, whether religious or not. So therefore, Imane’s employers had no right to ask her to stop wearing her hijab. One of the federal civil rights laws, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibits an employer from firing, refusing to hire, or disciplining a woman because of religious practices like hijab. Imane’s firing, therefore was unlawful.. Her employer’s said that wearing the hijab would make people from the park feel “uncomfortable” and that she should remove it.However, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) specifically states that refusing to hire someone because of a concern that customers or coworkers may be “uncomfortable” with hijab is illegal.
We are asking you to sign this petition to change and stop the discrimination of Muslim females and allow them to wear the hijab without having to go through a long process without and ending resolution. Disney should put a set of rules on how they can wear the hijab on their look policy instead of having them go through the long process of filing a request to headquarters and asking for alterations so they can wear their hijabs. Some suggestions we have about policy changes would be to have the hijab match the colors of the uniform they are required to wear, and it must be solid color.