Black Hyundai Worker Fired Over Dreadlocks Advances Bias Suit

A Black woman who says she was fired from her mailroom job at a Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Ala., because she wore her hair in dreadlocks has stated viable intentional race discrimination claims under federal law, a federal judge ruled.

Davita Key’s allegations are somewhat different from the dreadlocks-based claims found lacking in EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s claims in Catastrophe Management on the ground that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights ...