A Black teenager in North Carolina says she was sent home from work for a dress code violation: blond hair. A supervisor at Chick-fil-A allegedly told 16-year-old Autumn Williams that her hair was a violation of the dress code because it was "unnatural for her."
"She said since blond is an unnatural color to you, we’re going to have to ask you to leave and not come back until the blond is out of your hair,” the teen told People. “She said we understand that’s a long process and might not be easy, so email when you can come back.”
"It was very stressful — it made me feel like there was something wrong with me and my appearance," the teen told Today.
Autumn called her mom, Nina Burch, and asked her to pick her up from work. Nina said she noticed other employees had hair colors that did not appear to be natural, such as bleached blond hair with black tips, so the fact that her daughter was singled out started to "look a little racist to me."
Autumn said that at orientation for her job, she was told to keep her hair off her face, but the color of her hair was not mentioned.
"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,” Nina told People. "And he kept saying refer to the handbook."
The teen ultimately decided to quit her job at Chick-fil-A, though the owner of the restaurant contacted her and told her she could return to work there because their dress code policy had been misinterpreted. However, Autumn noted that he only called her after he was contacted by reporters from a local news station.
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"There was nothing eccentric about the color that was in her hair," Nina said, according to Queen City News. "So I think maybe there needs to be some sensitivity training about what people can and cannot look like. But that just sounds so crazy to say because who’s to say what anybody can look like based on their race?”
Autumn said she was "just glad that [she] was able to just stay true to [herself] and move on and find somewhere else to work; that’s fine with how [she looks].”
