UPDATE: Disney releases a statement (see end of post) . . .
Disneyland is allowing a Muslim worker to wear her religious headscarf in a position where she interacts with the public.
However, the woman in question is not Imane Boudlal, the hostess at Storyteller's Cafe in Disney's Grand
Californian Hotel, who was part of a media dust-up last month after she refused management's offer to either remove
her hijab or take a job working out of public view.
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The Los Angeles Times has the scoop on the latest case.
An unidentified woman was offered an internship as a vacation planner in Anaheim after a phone interview. When she arrived wearing her traditional headscarf, she was asked why she did not mention her hijab. She was then offered a post in the stockroom until a customized costume could be made for her.
But, here's the rub: she was told it would take five months to come up with the new costume–which is the length of her internship.
As it did with Boudlal, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose greater Los Angeles office is located in Anaheim, intervened. However, this time Disneyland agreed to accommodate
the woman in her original position as a vacation planner, according to CAIR.
As CAIR continues to negotiate on behalf of Boudlal, the organization is urging Disney to incorporate a corporate-wide policy that
protects its employees' right to wear religious attire.
We're reaching out to Disney for comment now.
From Disney spokeswoman Suzi Brown:
“Walt Disney Parks and Resorts has a long history of accommodating a variety of religious requests from cast members of all faiths –with more than 200 accommodations made over the last three years and this instance was no different.”
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.