Disney OKs Modified Hijab For Worker

SOURCE: Associated Press

In a time when racial tensions over Muslim rights to religious expression and other issues are coming to a boiling point, we have yet another angle: work uniforms at the Happiest Place On Earth.

Disney is allowing a Muslim employee at its Southern California park to wear a specially designed headscarf after initially objecting to her religious head covering.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday that 22-year-old Noor Abdallah was told she couldn’t wear the hijab while working as a vacation planner at a Disneyland Resort Esplanade ticket booth. She declined to take another job away from the public.

There are lines to be drawn over when religious garments are appropriate and when they are not. The workplace has long-served as testing ground for acceptable public attire. In this case, the influence of one culture on another seems likely to blend in with Disney’s “small world” philosophy. If Abdallah were working as a hostess or entertaining for a Las Vegas limo party or a model selling Carhartt jackets, there could be precedent for banning the hijab while on the job. But in this case we are talking about serving as a cultural worker on top of a paid worker: Abdallah is not selling Las Vegas bachelor parties. She’s working for a multi-cultural, multi-nation icon of one-world joy, so there should be no issue.

Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown says the park worked with Abdallah to design a covering to match her costume and meet her religious needs. She’s been wearing a blue scarf topped with a beret since early this month.

Brown says the case is separate from that of another Muslim Disney worker who refused to accept a costume headpiece and filed a federal discrimination complaint.

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MY TAKE: Exactly. We’re not talking about whether this woman can or cannot wear flame resistant clothing to work. This isn’t an infomercial for some drug to lose belly fat for women. And, if women did want to get rid of belly fat, it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. This is a job where multi-cultural themes have always played out as a backdrop: Disney himself was a world traveler and he also loved humankind. Why ban a worker from wearing their culture proudly.

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