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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 17105
[Pagan]
Date Posted:
1/20/2007
8:23:30 am EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 8,131
RSS: 19,024
Comments: 12
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Wiccan Ex-Barista Sues Starbucks Over Religion
Author: Brent Hunsberger Source: The Oregonian
Title: WICCAN EX-BARISTA SUES STARBUCKS OVER RELIGION
A former Starbucks barista in Hillsboro has sued the coffee giant, saying it discriminated against her based on her Wiccan religion.
In a complaint filed Jan. 8 in U.S. District Court in Portland, Alicia Hedum said a manager at Starbucks' Hillsboro Landing cafe asked her to remove her Wiccan cross several times, even though other employees, including the manager, wore Christian crosses.
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Community Thoughts: There are 12 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Starbucks? | Jan 22nd. at 9:22:12 pm EST
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Rob T Firefly (Lindenhurst, New York) - Email Me - Web
I'm not Starbucks' biggest fan, but it has always seemed to me that they are one of those companies like Hot Topic, that appreciate their employees looking as "unusual" as they like, just for the sake of appearing diverse. All sorts of funky hairdos, jewelry, and such abound on the men and women of my local Starbuckses.
Then again, I'm in New York.
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| I Have To Ask (well, Wish I Could) ... | Jan 22nd. at 4:41:21 pm EST
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Pinky McFatfat, High Shamrock Shake (Dublin) (Northumberland, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
...was this 'Pagan Cross' garish?
If I was an employer, I would have a problem with ANY religious symbol worn by an employee seen by the public that was very large/and or tacky. This would be anything from one of those big wooden crossses with cheap plastic beads to the saucer sized pentacles repleate with gaudy crystals.
That's just me...
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| She Could Have Been A Smart-aleck | Jan 21st. at 7:42:34 pm EST
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Luna SilverWolf (Lakewood, Ohio) - Email Me
and tucked the necklace inside her shirt, then proceed to wear a ring and/or earrings depicting pagan symbols. At the police department where I work , I have to wear a dispatcher's uniform (and can't have my pentacle necklace outside of my shirt) . I wear the earrings and no one says a word.
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| Reporters Do This All The Time | Jan 21st. at 2:52:46 pm EST
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Bookworm (Saint Paul, Minnesota) - Email Me
Honestly, I wouldn't assume what symbol she was wearing from this article. It might have been an equal-armed cross and the reporter chose to call it a “Wiccan cross.” It could have even been a Pentacle and he rather thoughtlessly used “cross” as a synonym for “religious symbol.” At any rate, I wouldn’t assume that the girl is stupid. I’ve seen many Pagan related news articles with bizarre terminology that is obviously misquoted or made-up by the writer. How many times have you seen articles referring to that mystical symbol of the Wiccan religion-- the Pentagon!? The important part that was clear is that the symbol was obviously Pagan, and that her manager discriminated against her for wearing it. I hope she wins.
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| Language Semantics And Practical Remedies | Jan 20th. at 4:28:33 pm EST
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
I had a chat with Barry Lynn in the halls of the ACLU conference last fall, in part about his reasons for using the term "pagan star" rather than Pentacle when mentioning the Patrick Stewart case whose details he obviously knows very well, in depicting that case to an ACLU member religious rights focused forum. The paper issuing this article likely faces the same issue shaping lawyer and minister Lynn's choice, where word count or time pressures require brevity, and that prompts imprecise word choices more easily understood by a broad audience, rather than precise terms which would require explanation and detract from other issues in a limited space or time, except when speaking to a pagan crowd expected to know the more specific technical vocabulary words already.
To change such practices, we need to educate and change culture and language, including over some larger issues, like some people drawing a distinction between "pagan" as a general class of religions from "Pagan" to imply some specific subset thereof. That kind of distinction is confusing in print, and lost in spoken delivery, whereas it requires substantial work over years to introduce new and more precise words into a language, and limit words like pagan to more clearly be broad references to all non-Abrahamic religions (still leaving some ambiguity of a few paths on both sides of that line) . We'll still get to work on when Druid is a cultural versus religious meaning, or Gaian implies religion versus philosophy only.
As to employment litigation as with Starbucks, one pagan lawyer working inside the EEOC (pagans are in fact everywhere) often reminds us that the serious challenge isn't whether some theoretical illegal action took place, as appears likely here. It's "practical remedies" for documenting the issues of fact, and resolving a useful solution. How does that balance any real work policies over tardiness from selective enforcement based on other prejudices? How is an issue of corporate bias distinguished from one bad manager, and if the latter, how does corporate get prompted or required to institute training, supervision, or worker appeals policies to result in this kind of discrimination being averted as part of routine operations, rather than surface in suits in branches of the same employer thousands of miles apart? In the case of a part time employee of variable hours, if payment of wrongfully denied wages is ordered, what is the base on which to calculate those, especially if a job promotion path was also denied, or workers in that industry often change jobs more often than the timeline for the labor law violation hearing process?
Who recognizes the legal claims present which support only recovery of lost wages subject to obligations to mitigate those losses by seeking alternate employment, versus claims which if validated would support punitive or treble damages as well? It's obvious this case alleges intentional, malicious conduct by the employer, and not just discriminatory consequences of broad employer policies, or negligence in respecting worker rights.
OTOH, as someone who supports collapse of the inflationary, artificial world the kind of economy toward which Starbucks caters enables and promotes, and as someone now living in a rural enough place that no such chains operate here, it's easy for me to see Starbucks and similar businesses as better suited for certain comedy movies which parody them, than desirable operations to have exist in our society.
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| Perhaps A Misquote | Jan 20th. at 2:37:33 pm EST
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Masery (Licking, California) - Email Me
It is possible the paper made a misquote concerning a "Wiccan cross". This could be a stylized solar cross she wore and since she was Wiccan the paper mentioned a Wiccan cross. In a google search, the Celtic/Solar cross came up under the heading Wiccan Cross. I didn't know people were calling it that.
The article doesn't offer many details and I'll withhold judgement since I wasn't there. Either way, if she was discriminated against for wearing Pagan style jewlry, I wish her the best in her lawsuit.
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| My, My, | Jan 20th. at 12:19:26 pm EST
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Candleberry (Port Angeles, Washington) - Email Me
I seem to have missed something in my Wiccan education--a Wiccan Cross. Yeah, right, now what in a fluffy-bunny's world is a Wiccan's cross?
Maybe she was just fired for general stupidity.
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| Possible Wrong Target | Jan 20th. at 10:15:26 am EST
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me
"When the King is a young man, the people will grieve." Solomon Davids, Disciple of Sophia.
"Alicia Hedum said a manager at Starbucks' Hillsboro Landing cafe asked her to remove her Wiccan cross several times, even though other employees, including the manager, wore Christian crosses. "
Was this a national, or franchisee decision? Starbucks hires a good many young Baristae, and should prohibit any ornamentation, for Gothophobia. She should have contacted National, or even Franchise, when she discerned that the Manager was promoting his own crackpot religion, in ways that the Pagan God Jesus has promised not to recognize, and given the Franchisee or Corporate Counsel a chance to correct the misconduct.
I understand another Alicia has filed suit against U.S. Canicide, but they may have taken her for an Eastern Star.
Arawn
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| It Happens | Jan 20th. at 10:08:21 am EST
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ladynoogs (lowell, Ohio) - Email Me
the hard part is proving it... happened to me (but cant prove it) twice and i didnt even wear pentecles to work.
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