Instead of signing off on the petition, the group was called into a meeting where they were stripped of their ID badges, told to get their belongings and leave immediately due to their “unprofessional” actions.
“We were shocked,” said one intern who led the petition campaign that asked they be permitted to wear running shoes, non-leather flats and sandals. The intern moved ahead with the petition after she and other interns were told by their managers that they needed to abide by the dress code.
“The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in,” the intern noted. “You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”