And while there's been some progress made on the legal front—a black waitress who was fired from a Baltimore Hooters in 2013 because she was told the blond streaks in her hair looked "unnatural" was awarded $250,000 by a Maryland arbitrator, and the Pentagon's stringent policy on how female members of the military must wear their hair was overturned in 2014—it's not enough if women like Destiny Tompkins have to be pulled aside by superiors for no other reason than because they look a certain way.
The looming question: How can companies get away with calling out workers' physical attributes, especially those are that are clear signposts of race?
They can't, at least not in this case, says one expert. New York–based employment attorney Alex Granovsky, of Granovsky & Sundaresh PLLC, told Glamour that some legal issues surrounding dress code fall under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.
"Her hair has nothing to do with her job," said Granovsky, who isn't affiliated with Tompkins or Banana Republic. "It doesn't convey anything inappropriate. The word urban is barely code for 'You look too black'"—a point that wasn't lost on Tompkins.
"There’s no reason why a white person should feel allowed to tell me that I can’t wear my hair the way that I want bc it’s too black for their store image," she wrote on Facebook.
The reality is, even if retailers do enforce certain restrictions pertaining to "acceptable" hairstyles—no matter how vague the language—racial undercurrents will persist since definitions of "professional" and "neat" are fully subjective. Plus, it's misguided for companies to assume traditionally black hairstyles are always purely aesthetic: Many that come under fire in the workplace—box braids, dreadlocks, cornrows, twists—are deeply connected to hair texture, a cultural indicator of race.
"Black women have been criticized and discriminated against because of the way we choose to protect and maintain our natural hair for generations," Tompkins told Glamour. "A majority of black people tend to have much kinkier, curlier texture…. The sun helps our curls flourish in the summer and keeps our hair moisturized, which is necessary to keep it healthy. The cold weather tends to make our hair brittle and cause breakage and loss of hair, which is why we style our hair with braids."
"I don't think anyone's natural hair should ever be seen as 'unkempt,'" she said. "It's discriminatory to tell anyone the hair they were born with looks 'unprofessional' [and to tell] people who use protective styles like braids to maintain the health of their hair that it's too 'urban' for their store brand. It's incredibly racist."
As of Friday, October 6, Tompkins said she's still employed by Banana Republic and "waiting to hear how the situation will be handled" before resigning. She also said she's talked to a few attorneys about her options.
