Abercrombie and Fitch Demotes Rian Dean for Prosthetic Arm

Abercrombie and Fitch Teen Clothing stores, purveyors of rugged shorts, six-packs and skin, have gotten themselves into another legal and ethical morass. In a London Abercrombie outlet, 22 year old Rian Dean was removed from her position on the showroom and demoted to a stockroom position. Why? Poor performance? Unprofessional appearance? Nope. Rian Dean has a prosthetic arm, which management claims violated Abercrombie's 'look policy'. Given Abercrombie and Fitch's clothing line, which sports little clothing and lots of skin, I find Rian's demotion bizarre. Show your piercings, tattoos and silicone body and any bodily enhancements, God-given or plastic, but don't show your prosthetic arm.

And here's the funniest part. Dean has been doing her job as showroom salesperson satisfactorily with her offending prosthetic arm and no one noticed. Suddenly someone realized, 'hey that's a fake arm' and hustled Dean into the back room so no customer would see it? If Dean's arm was so offensive why did it take so long for someone to notice? Dean was obviously doing her job properly with her prosthetic arm. The issue was purely a 'look policy'. Some minnow munching supervisor was clearly short on brain and long on...audacity.

But even I am getting away from the real problem. Can you say Discrimination in all caps and bold? Dean's demotion in the United States would be a blatant violation of the ADA- the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects workers from being discriminated against in the workplace owing to physical handicaps. I don't know what Great Britain may have in place to deal with such atrocities, but I suspect there are similar Parliamentary Acts.

I hope that without too much ado for Rian Dean she gets a barrister who can kick Abercrombie and Fitch right in their dungareed behinds. 'Looks policy' indeed.