Things you should know about Abercrombie & Fitch and company

• In 2009, A&F was fine over $115k by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights after a customer was denied the right to help her autistic sister in a fitting room.
• In 2004, the company payed a $40million settlement to the EEOC which were distributed to over ten thousand African America, Asian, Latino persons who had been discriminated during their application to A&F. The company was made to agree to the institution of policies, programs, and provisions to promote diversity among its workforce and to prevent discrimination based on race or gender.
• In 2011, a former employee was approached to do modeling work fr the company and to achieve a more ‘relaxed’ look was asked to masturbate and expose himself on camera. Last year he filed a $1 million lawsuit.
• In Milan last year, a store was the focus of a lawsuit because any errors made on the job were punished with 10 squats for women and10 pushups for men.
• In 2009, a girl with a prosthetic arm was forced to work in the stock room, away from customers, because her disability broke “Look Policy”.
• Employment was denied for a woman in Tulsa in 2008 after wearing her hijab to an interview with A&F. In 2010, a young woman in San Jose was denied employment at an Abercrombie Kids after the interviewer ask her if she was Muslim and required to wear a head scarf; he wrote “not Abercrombie look” on the interview form. Same year, a young woman at a Hollister in San Mateo was fired after a district manager had seen her in her hijab. All have filed law suits.

How about their products?

• In 2002, a shirt with the slogan “Wong Brother Laundry Service - Two Wongs Can Make it White” with stereotypical garb on a cartoon of two asian men. The shirt was discontinued after a boycott was started by Asian American Students at Stanford.
• Again in 2002, a line of thong underwear targeted at pre-teen girls (in their sizes) with the phrases “Eye Candy” or “Wink Wink” printed on the front were sold at Abercrombie Kids. The products were discontinued after angry parents made nationwide storefront protests.
• In 2005, t-shirts with sexist phrases such as “Who needs brains when you have these?” were pulled after a boycott and protest by the Women and Girls foundation.

Their image as a company is also good.

• In 2008, a Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio agreed to the renaming of its emergency room to The Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency and Trauma Center for a $10million donation. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood lead a petition signed by doctors and children’s advocacy group to prevent it.
• In 2010 in Southampton, England, a young woman working at a Hollister was not allowed to wear a Red Poppy in commemoration of Armistice Day, dedication to past and current persons in the armed forces. The company apologized on Facebook.

Now, mind you, these are instances and lawsuits that have happened in stores and in the production of merchandise. Discrimination is engrained in Abercrombie & Fitch and its sister stores, both in and out of the US. The CEO Jefferies is NOT good at his job but his influence has made the company what it is.

That recent statement on fat shame is not news. This has been a problem for the company for decades.