Woman Says She Was Fired For Refusing To Dye Gray Hair

By Irin Carmon  |  July 11, 2011 | 8:05pm
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When Sandra Rawline, a branch manager at Capital Title of Texas, was told she had to dye her hair from its natural gray, the boss was extra helpful, even offering to dye Rawline’s hair for her. Rawline refused, and the next week she was fired and replaced with a woman ten years younger.

That was in 2009, and now Rawline is suing the company for age discrimination and retaliation.

The company denies her claims and says she was terminated because of the unspecified complaints of a single customer: “Since the customer refused to work with her any longer, there would be no job left for her.”

Rawline has been gray since her twenties, indicating that the gray hair alone wasn’t a problem in her rising through the company. She says her boss wanted her to upgrade to wear “younger fancy suits” before a move to another office venue.

Her former employer says it still has several employees in their sixties, though their gender wasn’t specified. And the CEO told The Houston Chronicle that he has gray hair too. That’s exactly the same thing! What’s the female version of “silver fox” again?

A Price To Pay For Being Gray? [Houston Chronicle]

 
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