National restaurant chain Chipotle Services, Inc. will pay $20,000 and furnish other relief to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) religious harassment, retaliation, and constructive discharge lawsuit, the federal agency announced.
The EEOC suit alleged that in July 2021, at a Lenexa, Kansas, Chipotle restaurant, a supervisor began harassing one of his employees because of her religion. The employee, a teenager at the time, is a devout Muslim and wears a hijab head covering in observance of her faith. Her supervisor repeatedly asked her to remove her hijab and expose her hair. She rebuffed the requests and explained the religious significance of the hijab. Then, on Aug. 9, 2021, after again pressuring her to take off her hijab, the supervisor grabbed her head scarf and partially removed it himself. She immediately reported the incident, and tendered her two weeks’ notice the next day, the EEOC said.
The EEOC’s lawsuit further charged that Chipotle then refused to schedule the teen for the duration of her notice period in retaliation for her complaint.
Such alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace harassment based on religion as well as retaliation for complaints of religious harassment. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Chipotle Services, Inc., Civil Action 2:23-cv-02439) in U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.
In addition to the $20,000 in monetary relief, the three-year decree settling the suit requires Chipotle to provide training to line employees in the Lenexa, Kansas, area three times a year on harassment and religious discrimination. The decree also requires Chipotle to regularly train supervisory personnel regarding Title VII and religious discrimination. The company must also report to the EEOC any complaints of religious harassment that occur during the pendency of the decree.
Source: EEOC
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