Looks

The next chapter in civil rights

Cassandra Smith, 20, of Roseville, Mich. filed a lawsuit against Hooters, saying she was placed on a 30-day weight probation and told to agree to lose weight or lose her job.

Beauty may only be skin deep, but that’s plenty deep enough to cost you a job, a promotion, or the training to get one. Marie Smith, a Hooters waitress, who was 5-feet 8-inches and 132 pounds, was placed on involuntary weight probation until she could fit into a company uniform: the only sizes available were small, extra small, and extra extra small. Brenda Lewis was an Iowa hotel desk clerk who lost her job despite excellent performance ratings because she appeared “tomboyish,” and lacked the “pretty” “Midwestern girl look” that the operations manager thought appropriate. Sharon Russell was expelled from a nursing school not because of her record but because of her weight and because administrators worried that she would provide a poor “role model [for] good health habits” when counseling patients.

Part of the problem is the lack of consensus that any of this is a problem. “So you Want to Hire the Beautiful” ran the title of one Business Week column. “What’s wrong with that?” Read more at www.boston.com