Corporate Dress Codes Can Turn Hair-raising

March 28, 1988

Most workers don`t like dress codes, especially women who feel singled out because they work in female-dominated jobs.

Now, employed women are reacting to a new twist: Dress codes that ban cornrows, the braiding of hair close to the scalp in neatly parted rows.

``It`s outrageous that any person`s job should depend on a hairstyle when the hairstyle has nothing to do with the ability to perform a job,`` said Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women.

Cornrows were worn by Bo Derek in the movie ``10,`` but the precise, orderly hairstyle has been popular among African women for some 4,000 years. Two Egyptian queens known for their beauty, Cleopatra and Nefertiti, wore cornrows.

Several complaints have been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by employees of various Hyatt hotels who say the hotels wouldn`t let them wear cornrows.

Cheryl R. Tatum, former cashier at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, a hotel in a Virginia suburb near Washington, is one of those who charges that she lost her job because of her hairdo.

Cornrows, Tatum said, are ``almost exclusively worn by African and African-American women and are quite popular among black professional women.`` To ban them, she said, ``is to discriminate against black female workers.``

Tatum, 37, a two-year employee with an exemplary work record, according to her deposition in the complaint, was told not to wear cornrows to work because it was an ``extreme`` hairstyle.

Tatum says she refused to undo her hairdo or to adopt what she calls

``a white European style instead.`` So, she said, she was forced to resign.

Now working in temporary jobs-and still wearing cornrows-Tatum calls the hairstyle ``an expression of my heritage, culture and racial pride. They are impeccably groomed, carefully wrought and cost-efficient.``

She said it takes 4 1/2 hours and $80 to have a hairstylist put her hair in braids. The finished hairdo lasts for about two months.

Tatum, in her complaint, is asking for back pay, compensatory and punitive damages and attorney`s fees.

Among others who have filed with the EEOC are Sydney Boone, a switchboard operator at the Grand Hyatt in Washington and Pamela Walker, who was a concierge at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

Boone, a student at Howard University, said she wore a wig over her braids to keep her job at the Grand Hyatt...

Walker is a full-time teacher and a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is rearing a daughter, Dominique. She said she was fired in June from her part-time job at the Hyatt Regency Chicago when she showed up for work wearing cornrows.

Walker, who had undergraduate and master`s degrees in education, is asking the EEOC for back pay and compensatory damages. Her attorney, Diane Shelley, said the hotel has offered to reinstate Walker.

Julie Milsten, manager of corporate public relations for Hyatt Hotels Corp., based in Chicago, said Hyatt ``does not have and has never had a corporate policy prohibiting multibraided hairstyles or cornrows. Well-groomed, neat, clean braided hair worn by females of any race is considered acceptable and not contrary to Hyatt`s image definition.``

Though Hyatt Hotels Corp. said it never had a policy banning braided hair, Milsten acknowledged that the Grand Hyatt in Washington had a local policy that prohibited multibraided hairstyles.

``When corporate offices realized that this clause could possibly be interpreted as discriminatory, the hotel was directed to change its policy immediately,`` Milsten said. Boone, who still works for the Grand Hyatt, is

``now free to wear her hair in whatever neat and well-groomed styles she chooses,`` Milsten said.

Milsten said Tatum ``was never fired by Hyatt. She was cautioned by her supervisor about the appearance of her particular hairstyle, not the cornrow style in general.

``She resigned. We have offered her a position at the hotel, with or without braided hair, but to date she has declined the offer.``

When Janice Davis, a Washington attorney, heard that some Hyatts banned cornrows, she said she was ``appalled at the invidious discrimination.`` Over a three-year period, Davis had stayed at a Hyatt hotel whenever she was in Dallas working on a case.

Davis recently organized the Coalition for Cultural Equality to support women on the cornrows issue. The coalition, with Operation PUSH, has organized boycotts of Hyatt hotels and focused national attention on the problem.

The Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local No. 25 in Washington is circulating petitions protesting the alleged cornrows ban. And demonstrations are continuing to be held by civil rights and women`s groups.

Davis said other employers also have policies against braided hair.

``Corporate America has to recognize that women and minorities are entering the workforce and its policies must be flexible enough to accommodate them,`` said Davis