Pink Hair For Solidarity
It seems too lunatic to be true. But here a hair salon boss reveals how she was driven to the brink of ruin - and forced to pay £4,000 for ‘hurt feelings’ - after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn’t show her hair at work
For Sarah Desrosiers, meeting Bushra Noah was not a moment in her life that she would describe as especially memorable.
Not only was it brief - lasting little more than ten minutes - but it was rapidly obvious to Sarah that Bushra was not the person for the junior stylist position she was trying to fill at her hairdressing salon.
Sarah’s reasoning? Quite simply that Bushra, a Muslim who wears a headscarf for religions reasons, had made it clear she would not be removing the garment even while at work. …
For a year, Sarah has been facing financial ruin, due to a compensation claim for £34,000 brought by Bushra, 19, who has maintained she is due that figure after being turned down for a job at the Wedge salon in London’s King’s Cross.
In the event, the tribunal ruled this week that while Bushra’s claim of direct discrimination failed, her claim for indirect discrimination had succeeded.
Sarah has therefore been ordered to pay £4,000 compensation by way of ‘injury to feelings’.
Although this is a smaller sum than she’d feared she might have to hand over, Sarah, 32, is still outraged.
‘I am a small business and the bottom line is that this is not a woman who worked for me,’ says Sarah.
‘She is simply someone I met for a job interview, who, for a host of reasons, was not right for the job. I cannot see how she deserves £4,000.
‘As for the notion that I’ve injured her feelings - well, people’s feelings get injured every day. I dread to think the sorts of things that people will try to claim injured feelings for now that this precedent has been set.’
Wow.
In its ruling, the tribunal said it was ’satisfied that Bushra was not treated less favourably than Sarah would have treated any woman who, whether Muslim or not, wears a hair covering at all times when at work’.
Accordingly, the claim of direct discrimination failed.
But with regard to the issue of indirect discrimination, they found that Sarah had pursued a ‘legitimate aim - that aim being to promote the image of the business’.
However, the burden of proof was on Sarah to prove that her means of achieving that legitimate aim was proportionate.
And that’s worth £4,000?
She was not able to prove her contention that employing someone with a headscarf would have the negative impact on her business’s stylistic integrity that she feared.
Since the judgment, Bushra, who is of Syrian descent and has worn a headscarf since she was 13, has, so far at least, chosen not to comment.
No but she’s allowed herself to be photographed looking defiant and injured.
If you keep reading this, it’s so sad. Here’s a girl who finally got her own business (remember how women entrepreneurs are something we’re supposed to be encouraging), and now it’s probably going to all fall apart for her because she couldn’t prove (£4000 worth of non-proving) that she didn’t hire this lady because she wasn’t right for the job. So I guess I should encourage everyone to get their hair done with “alternate cuts and colours” to help this girl out.
‘I kept thinking: “I’ve worked hard all my life - how can it be possible that someone can come into my shop, talk to me for ten minutes and then sue me for £34,000? How is that possibly fair?”.’
As she reels from the verdict, Sarah is contemplating her next move. While part of her is tempted to pay, simply to close the door on this unpleasant episode, she also feels she should fight to clear her name.
Her lawyers are advising her on whether or not she can appeal.
‘Because of this there will be a black mark against my name for the rest of my life,’ she says. ‘I feel I have not done anything wrong, and this is a terrible price to pay for a meeting that lasted ten minutes.’
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