The national chain known as IHOP, International House of Pancakes, has gotten itself into some hot water after some Muslim employees claim they were told to ‘lay low’ each September 11. According to reports, four former employees of IHOP were fired simply because they are Muslim. All four men worked at restaurants in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for a handful of years. The four men filed a lawsuit against IHOP and Anthraper Investments, which owns the franchises where all of the men worked. The lawsuit alleges that officials from the company not only harassed the men but also made derogatory comments to them.
“How do you explain that you’re going to allow comments about their religion, how Arabic men treat women, how they get an email every Sept. 11 saying lay low from their managers. What does that mean?” the attorney for the former employees said while at a demonstration against the chain outside of a courthouse in Dallas.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there is reasonable cause to believe that Anthraper harassed two of the workers and then fired them because of their nationality. The findings from the EEOC have been disputed by the lawyer for IHOP. This is not the first time IHOP has had discrimination allegations made against it. In Columbia, Missouri, a former IHOP employee sued the restaurant and three of its workers. The former employee who sued the restaurant said that he was wrongfully terminated after he decided to confront an employee who was using racial slurs against him.
Also in the news recently is Whole Foods, which wrongfully fired an employee who is Muslim last year. The employee claimed he was harassed because of his religious practices. Also last year, 25 Muslim employees at Hertz were fired by the company for not clocking out when taking breaks to pray. Hertz claimed that the employees were taking longer than the two, 10-minute break periods permitted.
