Lawsuit Claims Race Bias at Wet Seal Retail Chain
Three former managers at Wet Seal, a nationwide apparel retailer for young women, filed a federal race discrimination lawsuit on Thursday, asserting that the company had a high-level policy of firing and denying pay increases and promotions to African-American employees because they did not fit its “brand image.”
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., includes a copy of a March 2009 e-mail sent by the company’s then senior vice president for store operations to lower-level managers after she had inspected several stores. The email said, “African American dominate - huge issue.”
One plaintiff, Nicole Cogdell, the African-American former manager of a Wet Seal store in King of Prussia, Pa., said the company terminated her the day after that e-mail was sent. She said that she had heard the senior vice president, Barbara Bachman, tell a district manager that she wanted someone with “blond hair and blue eyes.”
The lawsuit seeks back pay, and general and punitive damages. It also seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 250 current and former black managers at Wet Seal, which has more than 550 Wet Seal and Arden B stores across the nation and is based in Foothill Ranch, Calif.
Another plaintiff, Kai Hawkins, the African-American former manager of a store in Cherry Hill, N.J., said her district manager had told her to hire more white employees or face termination. In the lawsuit, Ms. Hawkins said that she had been offended by Ms. Bachman’s e-mail and that she saw many black employees being “terminated despite doing a good job and without any explanation.”
In a statement issued Thursday, Wet Seal said: “Wet Seal is an equal opportunity employer with a very diverse work force and customer base. We deny any and all allegations of race discrimination and will vigorously defend this matter.”
The company’s spokeswoman, Yasmin El-Ezaby, did not respond to several telephone and e-mail messages requesting comment. The company’s chief executive, Susan P. McGalla, also did not respond to a phone message.
Ms. Bachman left the company in May 2011, according to her LinkedIn page.
Brad Seligman, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, has also been the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer in the highly publicized sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart that sought class-action status on behalf of more than 1.5 million women who are current or former Wal-Mart employees. The Supreme Court ruled that class-action status was inappropriate in that case, saying that there appeared to be no companywide policy promoting discrimination.
But Mr. Seligman, citing the senior vice president’s e-mail, said that the Wet Seal case would more clearly qualify for class-action status.
“This is unlike Wal-Mart,” he said. “We have an explicit corporate policy that’s discriminatory. This is old-school, straight-up discrimination.”
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. is co-counsel for the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit alleges that Ms. Bachman had ordered various managers to “lighten up” the work force in stores with a large white clientele by hiring more whites and had told a regional manager that she must have “lost her mind” to have put a black person in charge of a particular store.
Charles A. Sullivan, a law professor at Seton Hall University and co-author of a textbook on employment discrimination law, said: “On these facts, the case sounds like a slam-dunk. Even if there is a consumer preference for employees to be of a certain race, even if it might reduce patronage, the law doesn’t provide an exception for you to discriminate in that way.”
Wet Seal says it emphasizes “fast fashion at affordable prices,” and reported net income of $15.1 million on sales of $620 million in the fiscal year that ended Jan. 28.
Mr. Seligman said that more than 20 current and former Wet Seal employees had filed charges of discrimination with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In a federal lawsuit brought in 2003, Abercrombie & Fitch - which at the time regularly used blond, blue-eyed models to appeal to consumers of college age - faced a somewhat similar lawsuit that accused it of discriminating against blacks, Hispanics and Asians. The suit asserted that Abercrombie favored certain colleges, fraternities and sororities for hiring and often relegated nonwhite employees to supply room jobs where customers would not see them.
After a federal judge approved class-action status in that case, Abercrombie agreed to pay more than $40 million to several thousand plaintiffs, hire 25 diversity recruiters and add more blacks, Hispanics and Asians to its marketing materials.
The Wet Seal lawsuit states that after Ms. Cogdell was terminated and complained to the E.E.O.C., Wet Seal offered her another job. But she said she had felt compelled to quit because the company was not addressing what she said were its underlying problems of discrimination.
“I couldn’t work for a company that not only tolerated, but required discrimination,” Ms. Cogdell said in a statement.
Source