African-American Hooters' Waitress Fired Over Hair Color

By James Brown | Oct 23, 2013 09:43 PM EDT

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An African-American waitress was fired from a Hooters' restaurant in Baltimore, because her hair color wasn't natural.

Farryn Johnson, 25, claims that her supervisors fired her because she was violating Hooters appearance policies by dying her hair with blonde highlights and being "African-American".

"Other waitresses had dyed hair, one Asian-American woman with bright red hair, a white woman who had black hair with platinum highlights," she told her supervisors. "They simply told me that my hair was 'not natural' because I was African-American."

Back to June, she was told off for her appearance but she ignored the warning and didn't change her hair color. Afterwards, she was fired in August.

"When you're representing an iconic brand there are standards to follow. Hooters Girls are required to be camera-ready at all times to promote the glamorous, wholesome look for which Hooters is known. Hooters adamantly denies that it has different policies and standards for hair based on race. As a global brand, Hooters embraces our culturally diverse employee base and our standards are applied impartially," said Rebecca Sinclair, chief human resources officer for Hooters America.

Johnson, who had worked for nearly a year at Hooters, said she was not the only "black Hooters employee" told by managers to change her hair.

"Other were also ordered to straighten their hair when they came to work with curly hair," pointed out. "Even though white employees were allowed to work with curly hair."

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