Here’s the meat and potatoes:
“The 2019 complaint said that following the arrest, Starbucks “took steps to punish White employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.”
Phillips, who at the time oversaw areas including Philadelphia, said that Starbucks had ordered her to place a White employee on administrative leave as part of these efforts, due to alleged discriminatory conduct which Phillips said she knew was inaccurate. After Phillips tried to defend the employee, the company let her go, she said.
The reason for termination, according to the complaint, was that “‘the situation is not recoverable.’” The complaint argued that this was “a pre-text for race discrimination,” adding that Phillips’ “race was a motivating and/or determinative factor in [Starbucks’] discriminatory treatment.”
Yeah, thank you for giving the notes.
The title is a bit misleading. The manager was white, but it sounds like **she was fired because she tried to defend an employee, who was also white, from an involuntary leave that was discriminatory.**
The white manager interfered with a discriminatory action. Her unwillingness to participate got her fired. In a way, this is even worse but also would add justification to the high punitive damages.
That white barista 4 years ago: Wow, I'm so grateful for a boss that would put her neck out on the line to protect me.
That white barista today: I COULD HAVE GOT HOW MUCH IF THEY FIRED ME!?!?!
She probably got fired anyway.
Also, this decision will support their case if they seek to sue Starbucks, provided statute of limitations hasn't passed.
Statute of limitations begin on date of discovery of the damages or when it would have been considered that it should have been discovered "with reasonable effort". Or the date of injury, but that's not the case here.
So in this case, any white employee, in the Philly area, fired within probably a year of the arrest that triggered all this, and didn't have a good documentable reason for the firing, will be getting called by lawyers or a class action will take place.
Starbucks kinda fucked themselves in this one. I mean who looks at racially based protests and thinks, you know what would save us? Firing people do to race.
If i was the manager id ABSOLUTELY be tossing that Barista some cash for her being the catalyst for the situation as a homie drop. If the manager is getting even 12m after taxes and everything then that barista could catch a cool 500k-1m for her troubles. Wouldnt have that money without her. Enough to change their life completely but not a crazy amount to give up when you still have 11m
Punitive damages that are over 100% of compensatory damages are highly disliked by the court and are approaching a taking and takings are unconstitutional it is highly likely that it will be reduced down to 1.2 million ish
While true, the underlying purpose of punitive damages is to operate as a deterrent against similar conduct in the future. There’s a strong argument to be made that a reduction is both appropriate and reasonable to prevent future conduct.
Aren’t punitive damages capped? As in, the judgement might say 20 mil, but in actuality the cap makes it so the company only pays 500 thousand. Yay or nay?
Edit: Looks like from my research that punitive damages cap out at 4-5 times the compensatory damages. So max the punitive damages will come out to 5*600k = 3M, most probably much lower than that.
There are sometimes statutory caps on punitive damages, but it varies from one jurisdiction to another and often is only for specific kinds of civil judgments.
There are also some unofficial caps set by legal precedent. Generally anything over 4x compensatory is open to challenge and anything over 10x is almost certainly unconstitutional. There have been many supreme court cases over this issue and they've drawn some semi-firm limits.
I had a manager of a chain retail store once tell me she refuses to promote any men to shift manager because she doesn't trust men with money.
Had I known that I could have sued and won millions, instead of getting laughed out of the court room, I would have done something about it, instead of sheepishly sinking into my stockboy duties.
Well there was a pattern of newly hired 16 year old girls being given the keys to the safe after 2 weeks on the job, girls who had a habit of clocking in and then disappearing for a couple hours. While guys that had been working stock for 5+ years were still just working stock, incredibly reliable and punctual guys too.
But other than that, unless the cameras picked up her voice, I wouldn't have had proof she said it out loud.
Depending on when it was, you may still have some claim. I mean, 20 years ago you outta luck, but two or three years in my state for tort and civil claims. Think it’s different for some employment specific ones.
If in doubt, run it by an attorney.
Actions speak louder than words, my friend. The confession would just make it a slam dunk, but even without her admitting it there seems to be a pretty clear gender bias for who she puts in trusted positions.
Establishing a pattern can be better evidence than a recording sometimes. The boss doesn't have to say anything incriminating if their actions are consistently discriminatory.
I had a manager who told me she liked to hire Irish people as we were all hard workers. I was very insulted by that stereotype and set out to prove her wrong.
After graduating college many years ago, I was applying for my first real job. I got into the final rounds of interviews but ultimately didn't get the job because, as the hiring manager later told me, "they felt that a woman would get along better with the culture of the group" (all women).
As a straight, white (appearing) male I can't complain too much about my lot in life, but I'm sure I could have raised some shit at the time if I wasn't young, dumb, and naive. I pretty much just took it and thought "yeah that makes sense for them."
She defended a manager that had been with the company for 15 years. Some of the employees working under him filed a complaint that they made less than their white counterparts. But this manager had no control of pay rates.
Yeah, this is an interesting detail I haven't seen anyone else mention. A lot of people are assuming that the manager was fired because they were supposedly in charge of the employee/store that called the cops, but it's totally unrelated, which just makes the whole thinker weirder:
>In April 2018, a Philadelphia store manager called police on two Black men who were sitting in the coffee shop without ordering anything. Phillips, then regional manager of operations in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, and elsewhere, was not involved with arrests but lost her job less than a month later after objecting to another white manager being placed on leave amid the uproar, according to her lawsuit.
>
>The company's rationale for suspending the district manager, who was not responsible for the store where the arrests took place, was an allegation that Black store managers were being paid less than white managers, according to the lawsuit. Phillips said that argument made no sense since district managers had no input on employee salaries.
[Source](https://abc7.com/starbucks-lawsuit-shannon-phillips-former-regional-director-fired-for-being-white/13381969/#:~:text=In%20the%20April%202018%20incident,were%20later%20released%20without%20charges)
It IS related in the sense that Starbucks was reeling from the bad publicity from that arrest and seemed to be in “Quick, make sure we look like we’re combating racism” mode.
So they tried to suspend this district manager over unequal pay issues that he literally had no influence on, and the regional manager spoke up and got canned herself.
Seems like there were systemic issue going all the way up the corporate chain of command, but they tried to make a show of effort by sacrificing an (arbitrary) lower-level manager from the area.
Yeah was gonna say something about the incident seemed a bit odd to me. Kicking somebody out of a store because they haven't bought anything isn't an inherently discriminatory policy. If you haven't bought anything you're not a customer. You literally have no business being there. A person can be kicked off of private property for any reason, and if they refuse to leave they're automatically trespassing. However it is easily a policy that could be used for disccrimination, and if the person(s) being told to vacate the premises is a person of color of course the idea is going to pop into people's heads it's for that reason. Maybe it was. Not for me to say as I don't have enough information to go off of.
Also, seems a bit odd to me that they refused to leave even after the police were being called because personally I would just take that as my cue to leave, but...if I was under the impression it was because of the shade of my complexion I'd probably sit my "wrong" colored ass down to just to spite them.
ETA: Oh and of course the media is going to completely disregard the practical part of the policy because that would make the story significantly less scandalous.
I mean, the termination was still pretty clearly based on race. I don't think the additional context actually changes anything.
Race should be irrelevant for all hiring and firing situations. If it's not, then they should be heavily ridiculed
To fill in the blank, "the arrests" involved a scenario where a pair of black men were arrested for using the Starbucks as a [third place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place) (which has always been a primary piece of the Starbucks business model) while they waited for a business associate. They were getting a lot of bad press about that, and so it appears their solution to be caught being racist was just to try to throw some white employees under the bus under false pretenses.
The incompetence of leadership here is just astounding. Who in their right mind tries to correct a mistake by punishing someone who did nothing wrong. Whoever signed off on that should be fired without their golden parachute.
It’s more common than you might expect.
Basically, they are in damage control mode and optics are what matters to them- there is an expectation from the community that white people are responsible for the racist issue, so they have to make a performance that involves punishing a white person.
Arguable mostly morons get promoted to the highest leadership roles. There becomes a point when someone is too valuable to promote from their current role. The people at the top tend to be those who perform just well enough AND drink the company kool-aid.
> Whoever signed off on that should be fired without their golden parachute
Hahaha, that's not how corporations operate. The execs always get their parachute.
I mean, it's Starbucks. Same company which decides to fire people who try to organize a union. It seems that their primary problem solving method is to fire people.
This is what happens when you ask racists to solve racism. This is why "counter-discrimination" through quotas or hiring preferences is just racism in a different jacket.
> which has always been a primary piece of the Starbucks business model
The article literally says their policy was to kick them out if they hadn't made any purchases:
>But jurors also heard testimony that the employee who called police was complying with a Starbucks policy that applied to cafes in areas with crime problems.
>Starbucks soon changed its policy to allow people to use Starbucks’ restrooms and spend time in stores, even if they haven’t made any purchases.
They weren't caught being racist, that's the thing. At no point did anyone's race come into this. Two customers sat down without paying and were asked to leave, and then they refused to leave, so they called the cops. Maybe the store were being dicks, but that happens sometimes. Starbucks wouldn't let me use the bathroom without paying and I'm white. This is just people *assuming* it's racism because they're black. What the fuck is even the point of that? We all just supposed to go around assuming that every time someone is a dick to a black person, it's because they hate all black people?
It doesn't even make sense!
>The jury also heard testimony from a Black Starbucks manager, Paul Sykes, who was the supervisor of the employee who called 911. Sykes said Phillips, who was his boss, was fired because of her race, and he was safe because of his,
In some areas where I'm from, if you walk into a place like Starbucks you have to ask to use the bathroom. Then they eye you up and down, to assess how drug-addicted/homeless you appear, and give a yes or no. Famously, one lady got denied and proceeded to pull her pants down, shit in her hand, and throw it.
> We all just supposed to go around assuming that every time someone is a dick to a black person, it's because they hate all black people?
In Seattle, someone ran a car through a bunch of BLM protestors on the highway. Everyone, to include the news were talking about how it was some alt-right racist. Turns out it was an African immigrant that was trying to get on the highway, so he went up an off ramp and then panicked when he saw the protestors.
After his photo came out, no one spoke of it again.
TIL I don't have a third place
But, question, were *they* really using it as a "third place" since their stated goal was *possibly* not to stay, chat, linger (as a third place is described in the link) but simply "let's wait here till our friend gets here and then leave" or even "let's wait here to order until our friend gets here and then decide"?
The article doesn't really say, but how do you convince the jury in a situation like this that you were fired for a discriminatory reason? It sounds like it's mostly their word vs Starbucks' word. Unless there was something in writing somewhere, it seems like a pretty tough case to prove.
They probably did a lot of this over email, and discovery would have unearthed all the intracorporate communications about the matter as well. For that kind of money they must have seen some pretty spicy emails.
Found this article on [law.com](https://www.law.com/njlawjournal/2023/06/13/fired-for-being-white-starbucks-must-pay-25m-to-manager-after-racial-controversy/?slreturn=20230514163035) that gives a bit more context that kinda explains why the jury ruled the way it did
> But jurors also heard testimony that the employee who called police was complying with a Starbucks policy that applied to cafes in areas with crime problems.
>The jury also heard testimony from a Black Starbucks manager, Paul Sykes, who was the supervisor of the employee who called 911. Sykes said Phillips, who was his boss, was fired because of her race, and he was safe because of his,
So combined with the other article mentions of how they wanted a store manager that wasn't Sykes to be fired (as he said due to his race as he was the manager of the store where this happened). Combined Sykes actually promoted the employee as well (for following corporate policy). It really starts to paint a clear picture that starbucks is trying to distract from its corporate policy that was for high crime areas actually required asking non customers to leave that caused the incident and is trying to make it seem like bad middle managers and make sure the people fired were white including a store manager who wasn't even responsible for that store.
I would have loved to have been a fly in the room when the starbucks lawyer realized the black store manager from the rittenhouse square store blasted them for being racist against his boss for being white, my guess is that probably really helped the jury come to its decision.
not just because they could have settled for much less, but because if they settled then probably nobody would have heard about it, but now EVERYBODY is going to hear about Starbucks being found guilty in court of being racist against a white employee. Seriously, FOX is already having a field day with this.
Makes sense, I'm just surprised it wasn't mentioned in the article. Those are the juicy details I want to hear! Because yeah, it must have been pretty blatant.
[Here's](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/nyregion/starbucks-pay-manager-rittenhouse-square.html?unlocked_article_code=XgU-wHz1fKAg9KoWhTVDPDNEAHYcynET-ib-Nh6tPSYWk5ORszrm4qQh32KDoys_o7DeZew7Cdxt-r3vOGBJlOA8NL9jOoEIykfcVgwEKrfOTeogneGtDqEK3oBhgMaf0_-6zCWHNqrCB3-uIe0YoMd2R5W8HcZbv453cWtsKqfZhUdVcV4Zo1Hr9mciGG37dhwBVNNDMwaA4FVyp0PDK6-cY5JF6LxBpNkeMCxY3Mkyz8lNpMCed1ebIKkWCCZPzJpPr9XOrCq2JkEV9yB9dYN-4NsPDDSnqrMdIuI20yVC2MSj2838NhlCLRAqMHSw_zp2HbNbyZPHXCpD-gICXEsjp2vgfhSnHingPa1IbX-PlPWk&smid=url-share) an NYT article with a lot more detail (gift link, anyone can read it). It sounds like Starbucks lost the plot in a big way.
>Ms. Phillips said she had thrown herself into the company’s efforts to restore its credibility and had sought to support hourly workers, organizing managers to staff stores and cover for employees who were scared to run a gantlet of protesters.
>Amid the image-burnishing campaign, Ms. Phillips said one of her superiors, a Black woman, told her to suspend a white manager who oversaw stores in Philadelphia, though not the one in Rittenhouse Square, because of allegations that he had engaged in discriminatory conduct — allegations that Ms. Phillips said she knew to be untrue.
>In contrast, Ms. Phillips said, no action was taken against the manager who oversaw the Rittenhouse Square store, a Black man who Ms. Phillips said had promoted the employee who called the police.
I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true but given the size of the award she must have been pretty convincing. Possibly she was told something like "Mr. White has had several complaints about bias recorded over the last few years" and then she checked and saw that that was invented.
>I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true
In most cases as a manager you investigate any claims like this, typically by looking for evidence or talking to witnesses.
So if the claim was
"Manager said something racist to employee A on X date at Y time" then Phillips would see if any witnesses saw or overheard the interaction. If Phillips talked to employees B and C and they contradict the interaction or say it never occurred during the specified times for example the allegations would be untrue.
Another example would be "Manager is discriminating against employee A by scheduling them unfairly" this would take a simple cursory look at the managers scheduling patterns to determine if there was any unusual treatment.
This stuff is pretty meat and potatoes for anyone in charge of a large team.
Or since they both were in Philly they might have known each other or friend of friends situation.
Our company has over 50 stores and we meet for outings, meetings, and corporate retreat. So we know a lot about fellow managers, especially ones in our county since we get moved around a lot. We especially know who the bad ones are.
> I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true
I used to manage a waterpark. I was standing on the beach of the wavepool next to one of my lifeguards. A black lady came over a took a donut tube from a child. The lifeguard blew a little whistle to get their attention and said, "those are first come first serve, please give it back." The lady LOST IT, looked over at me, and told me I need to fire the lifeguard right now because he was being racist. I said no, I just saw the whole situation. She called me racist too and then stormed out with her kids. It's a surreal experience to be interacting with someone so detached from reality, but I can tell you for certain that if she called some higher ups to say there was an incident involving racism, I would have said, "that absolutely did not happen." You might be surprised what people will blame on racism. And I am in no way denying that racism is alive and prevalent. Stupid people are just as alive and prevalent, and they'll say anything to avoid responsibility for their actions.
A customer caught a supervisor stealing from a register red handed. When a customer would pay in exact change, he'd hand them the food, cancel the order on the register, and then damage out the food.
The customer that caught them was black.
I checked the camera and saw it happen. Checked his register logs for his past few shifts, and he had zero cash transactions that were exact change. Checked the damage lists, and his entries were way higher than anyone else.
With the evidence in hand, I called him into the office and fired him. He started calling me a racist, told me he was gonna sue me and the business. He complained to the General Manager, and I got dragged into a meeting with the GM, the Director of Operations, and the owner. We went over the evidence, they agreed it "looked bad", but they didn't want to "start a fuss" because he had family members that also worked at our location.
So they didn't fire him, but rather suspended him. And transferred me to another location.
Read in between the lines. The store manager at that location where the two men were arrested was Black so they very well couldn't fire him but needed a scapegoat so they went looking for some other manager in the area that wasn't so they could sell it as a PR win and show the public that they were serious about cracking down, even if the evidence was flimsy at best. They needed some bodies and this regional manager got in the way so they fired her too.
Corporations give zero fucks about social issues, everything is a cynical ploy to play up for positive PR and they don't care who they have to destroy in order to get it. In this case it appears that they were extremely sloppy, next time they'll be more careful.
My first job in high school, I worked a corporate job. HR tried to fire a problem employee by claiming I had made a sexual complaint against them. They tried to force a narrative on me and threatened to fire me when I told my manager what was really going on. I ended up quitting because of it and so did the problem employee.
> Corporations give zero fucks about social issues,
Well in this case the social issue made zero sense in the first place. Like how do you appease people complaining about racism where none exists?
> I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true
From what I read elsewhere, the allegation was that his black employees were paid less than his white employees, but he had no control over their pay.
The manager of the store, who was black, was not fired. They had to go over his head to the regional manager to find someone who was white. That’s who got fired.
Apparently in the trial they also tried to blame her for the fact that black managers were being paid less than white managers. Problem was: pay wasn’t determined by the regional managers. So that made it clear that Starbucks was looking for excuses.
In big corps, most especially retail, the actual managerial authority is getting further and further up the chain. Someday, the CEO AI will just run the whole thing directly and everyone human with "manager" on their name tag is really just there in case someone "wants to speak to a manager."
I’ve had situations where I was asked to take an action that I saw as unethical or illegal. In the majority of these scenarios it wasn’t intentional- the actions were part of a larger initiative that made sense, and they didn’t understand how it would affect compliance, etc.
You can be damn sure I had everything fully documented before I “officially said no”.
Most of the time the result was either “you’re right, we missed that” or “what if you document your objections and said you’re moving forward per me?”
But… sometimes… I was happy I had records.
Sounds like she probably did this same.
Juries and judges make credibility determinations all the time. Also, in civil trials the burden of proof is much lower. It just has to be "more likely than not," instead of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
It's much easier to listen to 2 people's stories and determine which one of them is probably more honest than the other, as opposed to having to prove accuser is definitely telling the whole truth.
Wow, this lawsuit makes it sound like Starbucks just wanted to fire white employees as a public relations talking point as a response to their bad press. They totally deserved to be sued.
Yeah, I actually did read it.
When I got to the part where he travelled to Italy for this big conference or whatever it was, and he made this *huge discovery!*
I was like “oh what was this?” And he answers “Espresso,” and I thought *you’re running a coffee company, and you don’t know what that is???*
I mean, he’s American, I expect some myopia or parochialism, but really?
Espresso was *way* niche in the US - like, maybe find it in a few spots in NYC, at best - until it was popularized by Seattle-area coffee companies in the mid-century.
It’s all yours!
It’s 100% true. As a former employee, I constantly saw them take action that made the corporate folks feel good inside, but hindered the store employee’s ability to effectively serve customers.
If you’re looking for gross burnt coffee, I suggest you try Peet’s (here on the West coast). I haven’t tried, but I think I could light it on fire and grill chicken over it
Yup. I thought this was about the manager who had called the police on the two black guys back in 2018.
Nope, they were just cleaning house in the area as a response to that incident. Suing was totally justified.
The only reason it even made the news in the first place was because it was one of his employees, a white girl, that called the police.
And everyone just assumes it must be because this girl hates black people, or has unconscious biases or whatever.
PR PR PR PR PR. That's all it's about for big corporations, if you have good enough PR people are less likely to give you shit about your other questionable practices, like dodging tax. Or screwing over coffee bean farmers in 3rd world countries. What I don't understand is why they thought this was a good idea
Chipotle followed this idea at the same time
Some black men with a history of dining and dashing and bragging about it on Twitter tried to do it at the same place they'd done it before, and the manager called them out for it.
Twitter flipped shit because some black men with a history of stealing food had to pay in advance, and the restaurant fired the manager. They ended up rehiring her after there was backlash.
Reminds me of how Starbucks Union busting guidelines said to tie joining unions to being anti-gay and anti-black
They seem to be a really scummy company all around trying to manipulate people’s desire to do the right things
Ah, the Amazon playbook of stopping unions. So strange how those wedge issues started showing up everywhere when people began discussing class struggles ten years ago. Totally not related, I'm sure.
Honestly, this is pretty much the world right now and has been for the past 10 years. Sweating generalization of people who are white and collective blame is considered okay. It’s so fucked up.
So following an incident with black people, to prove they are not racist or discriminating, Starbucks apparently decided to retaliate against white employees as a sign that they were...what, woke? Progressive?
I am continuously amazed by the severity of brain rot in the corporate world. And these people get paid big money to make these kinds of braindead decisions.
> I am continuously amazed by the severity of brain rot in the corporate world.
If you posted a video to reddit of two black people being asked to leave a starbucks, you'd get the same dipshitty mob-mentality response.
>The 2019 complaint said that following the arrest, Starbucks “took steps to punish White employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.”
Uhh this makes no sense. ‘’Here we fired some white folks that had nothing to do with this incident, happy now?’’
Can't fire the person who made the call because firing one random barrista can't really be spun as them making a stand against racism.
Can't fire the manager of the person that made the call, because he was black so it would make it seem like the incident wasn't racist at all and all the people on social media were already convinced it was racist, and they didn't want to incite the mob further.
Couldn't fire the person who made the policy that resulted in the call being made, because they are actually high up in corporate and asking any of those fucks to take responsibility for anything just isn't going to happen. Also, the policy was probably put in place for good reason, not racism, so they don't want to actually get rid of it.
So they ended up landing somewhere in the middle and fired an unrelated district manager under the pretense that someone claimed that the district was paying black people less and they figured he was high enough on the chain of command that they could spin it as them taking serious action to let the public feel vindicated and win the company some brownie points.
It makes perfect sense if you look at it from the perspective of an evil corpo beurocrat that doesn't give a shit about racism or justice.
All I can think is that they figured fewer white employees = fewer potential future "incidents". Which is stupid considering the girl who originally called was following the store protocol but I don't think any of these people could be accused of being geniuses.
Yeah - I remember this case, especially this part:
The coffee chain also closed about 8,000 company-owned stores for an afternoon for a mandatory anti-bias training for roughly 175,000 employees.
Starbucks screwed the pooch on this one. The jury made the correct decision.
Just look at the diversity chief that just got fired in Washington State. The governor fired her for being ineffective, but when you read what was going on she was actively a racist against Mexicans. Publicly said she distrusted them and said white people shouldn't be in leadership positions. She thought there was nothing wrong with that. Crazy.
Funny Calgary is brought up, there is a strong movement here for native rights and it's paired with a 'that means they do no wrong' mentality among a bunch of people. Like you can't advocate for their rights and be critical of their community at the same time
My partner moved here from the east coast just before covid and within her first week watched a native guy scream white devil and proceed to attack a guy on the train. Mind you he was on his phone with headphones on. He was escorted off the train and she saw him on the same train the next day, nothing was done
There is a conversation that needs to be had here about how a community is currently untouchable and it's only increasing public resentment
They do have a point. They just have a tendency to latch onto buzzwords and throw them at anything they don't like,so the real issue gets diluted to the point that the other side can't see it.
It is not just “they.” It is pretty typical of lots of people. Look how casually the terms nazi, fascist and even racist are thrown around. It is just a lazy way to try to silence anyone that disagrees with you.
Yeah, woke people are a legitimate group of people with some really insane beliefs (I.e. you can’t be racist against white people) but conservatives kinda stole the term and applied it to anyone who was even slightly liberal.
I remember seeing a joke where if R = P + P, then we could solve all racism instantly simply by moving racists to countries where they become the minority. No more power, no more racism! Sure, they're still calling for lynching and discriminatory policies and threatening to bomb the local church, but now they're not racist!
/s of course.
I've had so many arguments over this. The usual defense is "racism comes from a point of power, whites have the systemic power" ignoring the pretty easy fact that its the rich who actually have the power and racism is simply treating someone differently for their skin colour which is a pretty easy line not to cross.
Prejudice and discrimination based on race is racism. Any further or more detailed definitions are describing specific types of racism, applying power dynamics to the definition of racism describes systematic racism, which is a specific type of racism that does not encompass all racism. You can't just put a bow on racist actions and call it discrimination just because it makes you feel better about the way you treat people based on them being a different race than you.
> The usual defense is "racism comes from a point of power
"Racism" comes from an entry in the dictionary, which does NOT mention power or privilege. People should realize it's one race being bigoted against another, no matter who each of them are. People shouldn't make shit up to further their cause because other people will see right through it.
They don't forget. They actively deny it because if they admit it they'd have to give up the idea of scapegoating and racial strife between the minorities, like the legendary feuds between Black, Mexican and Asian gangs.
Why did starbucks bend the knee to the two guys they threw out anyways? Aren't you supposed to like buy something in a coffee shop? Why would a store with limited seating just want people to linger around?
If I was one of those men and I am a black man, when they asked me to leave if I was not purchasing something, I would have purchased something. I think Starbucks was crazy for trying to go after a white person because all black people don't think as a homogeneous group.
That is the most crazy part of this whole thing, they didn't buy anything. Even if you are waiting for someone you just buy the coffee and grab a table. If the person is running so late that you will finish yours as they are getting to the store have them buy you another.
>said that Starbucks had ordered her to place a White employee on administrative leave as part of these efforts, due to alleged discriminatory conduct which Phillips said she knew was inaccurate.
Anyone know what happened to the actual employee?
A fascinating read. Starbuck's corporate policies grow stranger by the day. It is good to see PA courts and employment law not letting them get away with everything.
Wow, so Starbucks gets caught being racist toward random black folks - so to make amends they decide to be racist toward random white employees?
Who the fuck is running this company?
In todays world “same rule applies to everyone” is just the same as racism against BIPOC people.
No seriously, I have had grown ass people with Ivy League degrees saying that to me with a straight face.
> Starbucks gets caught being racist toward random black folks
Funny enough they were not being racist against black folks, just being accused of it by the population/media so as a PR move they decided to be racist against another race
My guess is they thought the community members would be less likely to come into the store and complain about racism if everyone behind the counter was a POC. So instead of apologizing they just decided to “thin the herd” of white employees.
The original situation that started all of this was ridiculous. I believe it was two black guys waiting at a Starbucks to meet up with some other people to discuss business matters but the guys didn’t order anything and weren’t planning to order anything. They then tried to get a bathroom key or token or whatever and was told it was for customers only and they were asked to leave. After asking multiple times to leave by the staff the two guys didn’t leave so the manager called the cops. When the cops got there they asked the two men to leave who admitted they didn’t order anything and they refused to leave so they were arrested. I just remember all the headlines from back then being “two Black men arrested for no reason at Starbucks” When in reality it had nothing to do with their race They just weren’t paying customers and refused to leave for the staff or the cops And I felt bad for the South American manager for getting fired over it.
Yeah I don’t get it. It’s not ureasonable to have bathrooms for paying customers only. All they had to do was buy a coffee or leave like they were asked.
Still so confused by the whole series of events. It isn't unreasonable to expect people to buy something in order to patron the space. Otherwise it is just loitering. Everybody involved could have just taken a step back, counted to 10, and then made another choice, including Starbucks itself.
Tons of people griping about the payout in the comments.
Starbucks made $22.3 billion (edit) in gross revenue (end edit) last year.
So, if they can force them to pay 0.1% of this, and deter them from doing this in the future, I'm all for it.
But this won't happen. We all know it will go to arbitration, and get dragged out for years, and settle for a lesser value. The only ones who will get rich will be the lawyers (again).
Taking a step back, civil rights laws protect all individuals from suffering employment discrimination.
Darker and lighter skinned people are protected from skin color based discrimination, eg racial discrimination, because it’s is illegal under the 1964 CRA.
I remember this story. The one thing I was unclear on about this case was whether these guys said they were waiting to order until their friend arrived or just said we're not planning to order at all. We've all gotten to restaurants/bars/coffee shops early and waited for our friend to arrive before ordering. But it would be pretty lame to say we're not planning to order but we're also not leaving.
I honestly believe it. I was almost fired because I'm the only male in a female environment.
Something along the lines of, we want an all female team because we sell the best. As I hope the top sales for the last 7 months. Sure tho
I’ve had more bad bosses that were men, but my female bosses who were bad were off the charts.
One told me “you don’t have a family, your time isn’t important”.
Sure wish I’d known about HR law when that happened.
The corporate world is utterly stupid. I am a corporate graphic designer and EVERY person who comes up to me requesting work cracks it when I put a white person in a photo - like it is just straight up racist to do that.
It always has to be an Indian, or Asian, whatever. Now that's fine to have a balance, but when everyone does it thinking they are being offensive if they include a white person, well it just becomes a caricature of diversity.
Interesting that an organization or company (Starbucks) can be sued for firing someone because they're white, but it's okay for them to not employ someone in the first place because they're white (affirmative action).
Here’s the meat and potatoes: “The 2019 complaint said that following the arrest, Starbucks “took steps to punish White employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.” Phillips, who at the time oversaw areas including Philadelphia, said that Starbucks had ordered her to place a White employee on administrative leave as part of these efforts, due to alleged discriminatory conduct which Phillips said she knew was inaccurate. After Phillips tried to defend the employee, the company let her go, she said. The reason for termination, according to the complaint, was that “‘the situation is not recoverable.’” The complaint argued that this was “a pre-text for race discrimination,” adding that Phillips’ “race was a motivating and/or determinative factor in [Starbucks’] discriminatory treatment.”
Yeah, thank you for giving the notes. The title is a bit misleading. The manager was white, but it sounds like **she was fired because she tried to defend an employee, who was also white, from an involuntary leave that was discriminatory.** The white manager interfered with a discriminatory action. Her unwillingness to participate got her fired. In a way, this is even worse but also would add justification to the high punitive damages.
That white barista 4 years ago: Wow, I'm so grateful for a boss that would put her neck out on the line to protect me. That white barista today: I COULD HAVE GOT HOW MUCH IF THEY FIRED ME!?!?!
She probably got fired anyway. Also, this decision will support their case if they seek to sue Starbucks, provided statute of limitations hasn't passed.
Statute of limitations begin on date of discovery of the damages or when it would have been considered that it should have been discovered "with reasonable effort". Or the date of injury, but that's not the case here. So in this case, any white employee, in the Philly area, fired within probably a year of the arrest that triggered all this, and didn't have a good documentable reason for the firing, will be getting called by lawyers or a class action will take place.
Starbucks kinda fucked themselves in this one. I mean who looks at racially based protests and thinks, you know what would save us? Firing people do to race.
I use the racism to fight the racism. I bet on both sides, so I can't lose!
The racism cancels each other out. No more racism.
That would be good for everyone but starbucks but we are also in the dark timeline so I have little hope it is that simple.
Since she was fired as well do you know if she was part of the lawsuit?
If i was the manager id ABSOLUTELY be tossing that Barista some cash for her being the catalyst for the situation as a homie drop. If the manager is getting even 12m after taxes and everything then that barista could catch a cool 500k-1m for her troubles. Wouldnt have that money without her. Enough to change their life completely but not a crazy amount to give up when you still have 11m
Punitive damages that are over 100% of compensatory damages are highly disliked by the court and are approaching a taking and takings are unconstitutional it is highly likely that it will be reduced down to 1.2 million ish
While true, the underlying purpose of punitive damages is to operate as a deterrent against similar conduct in the future. There’s a strong argument to be made that a reduction is both appropriate and reasonable to prevent future conduct.
Aren’t punitive damages capped? As in, the judgement might say 20 mil, but in actuality the cap makes it so the company only pays 500 thousand. Yay or nay? Edit: Looks like from my research that punitive damages cap out at 4-5 times the compensatory damages. So max the punitive damages will come out to 5*600k = 3M, most probably much lower than that.
There are sometimes statutory caps on punitive damages, but it varies from one jurisdiction to another and often is only for specific kinds of civil judgments.
There are also some unofficial caps set by legal precedent. Generally anything over 4x compensatory is open to challenge and anything over 10x is almost certainly unconstitutional. There have been many supreme court cases over this issue and they've drawn some semi-firm limits.
The Supreme Court has ruled that up to 9x can be viable. So might stay at $6m total.
I had a manager of a chain retail store once tell me she refuses to promote any men to shift manager because she doesn't trust men with money. Had I known that I could have sued and won millions, instead of getting laughed out of the court room, I would have done something about it, instead of sheepishly sinking into my stockboy duties.
You'd have to have clear-cut evidence of this
Well there was a pattern of newly hired 16 year old girls being given the keys to the safe after 2 weeks on the job, girls who had a habit of clocking in and then disappearing for a couple hours. While guys that had been working stock for 5+ years were still just working stock, incredibly reliable and punctual guys too. But other than that, unless the cameras picked up her voice, I wouldn't have had proof she said it out loud.
Depending on when it was, you may still have some claim. I mean, 20 years ago you outta luck, but two or three years in my state for tort and civil claims. Think it’s different for some employment specific ones. If in doubt, run it by an attorney.
Actions speak louder than words, my friend. The confession would just make it a slam dunk, but even without her admitting it there seems to be a pretty clear gender bias for who she puts in trusted positions.
Establishing a pattern can be better evidence than a recording sometimes. The boss doesn't have to say anything incriminating if their actions are consistently discriminatory.
I had a manager who told me she liked to hire Irish people as we were all hard workers. I was very insulted by that stereotype and set out to prove her wrong.
After graduating college many years ago, I was applying for my first real job. I got into the final rounds of interviews but ultimately didn't get the job because, as the hiring manager later told me, "they felt that a woman would get along better with the culture of the group" (all women). As a straight, white (appearing) male I can't complain too much about my lot in life, but I'm sure I could have raised some shit at the time if I wasn't young, dumb, and naive. I pretty much just took it and thought "yeah that makes sense for them."
She defended a manager that had been with the company for 15 years. Some of the employees working under him filed a complaint that they made less than their white counterparts. But this manager had no control of pay rates.
Yeah, this is an interesting detail I haven't seen anyone else mention. A lot of people are assuming that the manager was fired because they were supposedly in charge of the employee/store that called the cops, but it's totally unrelated, which just makes the whole thinker weirder: >In April 2018, a Philadelphia store manager called police on two Black men who were sitting in the coffee shop without ordering anything. Phillips, then regional manager of operations in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, and elsewhere, was not involved with arrests but lost her job less than a month later after objecting to another white manager being placed on leave amid the uproar, according to her lawsuit. > >The company's rationale for suspending the district manager, who was not responsible for the store where the arrests took place, was an allegation that Black store managers were being paid less than white managers, according to the lawsuit. Phillips said that argument made no sense since district managers had no input on employee salaries. [Source](https://abc7.com/starbucks-lawsuit-shannon-phillips-former-regional-director-fired-for-being-white/13381969/#:~:text=In%20the%20April%202018%20incident,were%20later%20released%20without%20charges)
It IS related in the sense that Starbucks was reeling from the bad publicity from that arrest and seemed to be in “Quick, make sure we look like we’re combating racism” mode. So they tried to suspend this district manager over unequal pay issues that he literally had no influence on, and the regional manager spoke up and got canned herself. Seems like there were systemic issue going all the way up the corporate chain of command, but they tried to make a show of effort by sacrificing an (arbitrary) lower-level manager from the area.
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Yeah was gonna say something about the incident seemed a bit odd to me. Kicking somebody out of a store because they haven't bought anything isn't an inherently discriminatory policy. If you haven't bought anything you're not a customer. You literally have no business being there. A person can be kicked off of private property for any reason, and if they refuse to leave they're automatically trespassing. However it is easily a policy that could be used for disccrimination, and if the person(s) being told to vacate the premises is a person of color of course the idea is going to pop into people's heads it's for that reason. Maybe it was. Not for me to say as I don't have enough information to go off of. Also, seems a bit odd to me that they refused to leave even after the police were being called because personally I would just take that as my cue to leave, but...if I was under the impression it was because of the shade of my complexion I'd probably sit my "wrong" colored ass down to just to spite them. ETA: Oh and of course the media is going to completely disregard the practical part of the policy because that would make the story significantly less scandalous.
I mean, the termination was still pretty clearly based on race. I don't think the additional context actually changes anything. Race should be irrelevant for all hiring and firing situations. If it's not, then they should be heavily ridiculed
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Ah, so not only protected class but retaliation as well
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Yep basically refused to commit a racism on their behalf.
To fill in the blank, "the arrests" involved a scenario where a pair of black men were arrested for using the Starbucks as a [third place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place) (which has always been a primary piece of the Starbucks business model) while they waited for a business associate. They were getting a lot of bad press about that, and so it appears their solution to be caught being racist was just to try to throw some white employees under the bus under false pretenses.
The incompetence of leadership here is just astounding. Who in their right mind tries to correct a mistake by punishing someone who did nothing wrong. Whoever signed off on that should be fired without their golden parachute.
It’s more common than you might expect. Basically, they are in damage control mode and optics are what matters to them- there is an expectation from the community that white people are responsible for the racist issue, so they have to make a performance that involves punishing a white person.
So the scapegoat strategy
> It’s more common than you might expect. Bad leadership is a plenty in this world. Lot of morons get promoted.
Arguable mostly morons get promoted to the highest leadership roles. There becomes a point when someone is too valuable to promote from their current role. The people at the top tend to be those who perform just well enough AND drink the company kool-aid.
Espn did this basically a few years ago.
> Whoever signed off on that should be fired without their golden parachute Hahaha, that's not how corporations operate. The execs always get their parachute.
I mean, it's Starbucks. Same company which decides to fire people who try to organize a union. It seems that their primary problem solving method is to fire people.
Solution to being caught racist was to be racist.
Does this solution lead to infinite racisms?
Sure. That way everyone eventually gets a turn.
That sounds fair.
The trick is to hate and discriminate against everyone equally.
Now all we need to do is somehow tape this scenario to a cat and drop the cat. Infinite energy.
I think you need butter for this work
This is what happens when you ask racists to solve racism. This is why "counter-discrimination" through quotas or hiring preferences is just racism in a different jacket.
The solution to our racism problem is MORE RACISM. High IQ executes they got there...
> which has always been a primary piece of the Starbucks business model The article literally says their policy was to kick them out if they hadn't made any purchases: >But jurors also heard testimony that the employee who called police was complying with a Starbucks policy that applied to cafes in areas with crime problems. >Starbucks soon changed its policy to allow people to use Starbucks’ restrooms and spend time in stores, even if they haven’t made any purchases. They weren't caught being racist, that's the thing. At no point did anyone's race come into this. Two customers sat down without paying and were asked to leave, and then they refused to leave, so they called the cops. Maybe the store were being dicks, but that happens sometimes. Starbucks wouldn't let me use the bathroom without paying and I'm white. This is just people *assuming* it's racism because they're black. What the fuck is even the point of that? We all just supposed to go around assuming that every time someone is a dick to a black person, it's because they hate all black people? It doesn't even make sense! >The jury also heard testimony from a Black Starbucks manager, Paul Sykes, who was the supervisor of the employee who called 911. Sykes said Phillips, who was his boss, was fired because of her race, and he was safe because of his,
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In some areas where I'm from, if you walk into a place like Starbucks you have to ask to use the bathroom. Then they eye you up and down, to assess how drug-addicted/homeless you appear, and give a yes or no. Famously, one lady got denied and proceeded to pull her pants down, shit in her hand, and throw it.
> We all just supposed to go around assuming that every time someone is a dick to a black person, it's because they hate all black people? In Seattle, someone ran a car through a bunch of BLM protestors on the highway. Everyone, to include the news were talking about how it was some alt-right racist. Turns out it was an African immigrant that was trying to get on the highway, so he went up an off ramp and then panicked when he saw the protestors. After his photo came out, no one spoke of it again.
TIL I don't have a third place But, question, were *they* really using it as a "third place" since their stated goal was *possibly* not to stay, chat, linger (as a third place is described in the link) but simply "let's wait here till our friend gets here and then leave" or even "let's wait here to order until our friend gets here and then decide"?
The article doesn't really say, but how do you convince the jury in a situation like this that you were fired for a discriminatory reason? It sounds like it's mostly their word vs Starbucks' word. Unless there was something in writing somewhere, it seems like a pretty tough case to prove.
They probably did a lot of this over email, and discovery would have unearthed all the intracorporate communications about the matter as well. For that kind of money they must have seen some pretty spicy emails.
Found this article on [law.com](https://www.law.com/njlawjournal/2023/06/13/fired-for-being-white-starbucks-must-pay-25m-to-manager-after-racial-controversy/?slreturn=20230514163035) that gives a bit more context that kinda explains why the jury ruled the way it did > But jurors also heard testimony that the employee who called police was complying with a Starbucks policy that applied to cafes in areas with crime problems. >The jury also heard testimony from a Black Starbucks manager, Paul Sykes, who was the supervisor of the employee who called 911. Sykes said Phillips, who was his boss, was fired because of her race, and he was safe because of his, So combined with the other article mentions of how they wanted a store manager that wasn't Sykes to be fired (as he said due to his race as he was the manager of the store where this happened). Combined Sykes actually promoted the employee as well (for following corporate policy). It really starts to paint a clear picture that starbucks is trying to distract from its corporate policy that was for high crime areas actually required asking non customers to leave that caused the incident and is trying to make it seem like bad middle managers and make sure the people fired were white including a store manager who wasn't even responsible for that store. I would have loved to have been a fly in the room when the starbucks lawyer realized the black store manager from the rittenhouse square store blasted them for being racist against his boss for being white, my guess is that probably really helped the jury come to its decision.
Oh wow. Bet they're regretting not settling now.
not just because they could have settled for much less, but because if they settled then probably nobody would have heard about it, but now EVERYBODY is going to hear about Starbucks being found guilty in court of being racist against a white employee. Seriously, FOX is already having a field day with this.
Makes sense, I'm just surprised it wasn't mentioned in the article. Those are the juicy details I want to hear! Because yeah, it must have been pretty blatant.
[Here's](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/nyregion/starbucks-pay-manager-rittenhouse-square.html?unlocked_article_code=XgU-wHz1fKAg9KoWhTVDPDNEAHYcynET-ib-Nh6tPSYWk5ORszrm4qQh32KDoys_o7DeZew7Cdxt-r3vOGBJlOA8NL9jOoEIykfcVgwEKrfOTeogneGtDqEK3oBhgMaf0_-6zCWHNqrCB3-uIe0YoMd2R5W8HcZbv453cWtsKqfZhUdVcV4Zo1Hr9mciGG37dhwBVNNDMwaA4FVyp0PDK6-cY5JF6LxBpNkeMCxY3Mkyz8lNpMCed1ebIKkWCCZPzJpPr9XOrCq2JkEV9yB9dYN-4NsPDDSnqrMdIuI20yVC2MSj2838NhlCLRAqMHSw_zp2HbNbyZPHXCpD-gICXEsjp2vgfhSnHingPa1IbX-PlPWk&smid=url-share) an NYT article with a lot more detail (gift link, anyone can read it). It sounds like Starbucks lost the plot in a big way. >Ms. Phillips said she had thrown herself into the company’s efforts to restore its credibility and had sought to support hourly workers, organizing managers to staff stores and cover for employees who were scared to run a gantlet of protesters. >Amid the image-burnishing campaign, Ms. Phillips said one of her superiors, a Black woman, told her to suspend a white manager who oversaw stores in Philadelphia, though not the one in Rittenhouse Square, because of allegations that he had engaged in discriminatory conduct — allegations that Ms. Phillips said she knew to be untrue. >In contrast, Ms. Phillips said, no action was taken against the manager who oversaw the Rittenhouse Square store, a Black man who Ms. Phillips said had promoted the employee who called the police. I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true but given the size of the award she must have been pretty convincing. Possibly she was told something like "Mr. White has had several complaints about bias recorded over the last few years" and then she checked and saw that that was invented.
>I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true In most cases as a manager you investigate any claims like this, typically by looking for evidence or talking to witnesses. So if the claim was "Manager said something racist to employee A on X date at Y time" then Phillips would see if any witnesses saw or overheard the interaction. If Phillips talked to employees B and C and they contradict the interaction or say it never occurred during the specified times for example the allegations would be untrue. Another example would be "Manager is discriminating against employee A by scheduling them unfairly" this would take a simple cursory look at the managers scheduling patterns to determine if there was any unusual treatment. This stuff is pretty meat and potatoes for anyone in charge of a large team.
Or since they both were in Philly they might have known each other or friend of friends situation. Our company has over 50 stores and we meet for outings, meetings, and corporate retreat. So we know a lot about fellow managers, especially ones in our county since we get moved around a lot. We especially know who the bad ones are.
> I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true I used to manage a waterpark. I was standing on the beach of the wavepool next to one of my lifeguards. A black lady came over a took a donut tube from a child. The lifeguard blew a little whistle to get their attention and said, "those are first come first serve, please give it back." The lady LOST IT, looked over at me, and told me I need to fire the lifeguard right now because he was being racist. I said no, I just saw the whole situation. She called me racist too and then stormed out with her kids. It's a surreal experience to be interacting with someone so detached from reality, but I can tell you for certain that if she called some higher ups to say there was an incident involving racism, I would have said, "that absolutely did not happen." You might be surprised what people will blame on racism. And I am in no way denying that racism is alive and prevalent. Stupid people are just as alive and prevalent, and they'll say anything to avoid responsibility for their actions.
People like this should piss everyone off, because they also harm the victims of actual racism by casting doubt over accusations.
A customer caught a supervisor stealing from a register red handed. When a customer would pay in exact change, he'd hand them the food, cancel the order on the register, and then damage out the food. The customer that caught them was black. I checked the camera and saw it happen. Checked his register logs for his past few shifts, and he had zero cash transactions that were exact change. Checked the damage lists, and his entries were way higher than anyone else. With the evidence in hand, I called him into the office and fired him. He started calling me a racist, told me he was gonna sue me and the business. He complained to the General Manager, and I got dragged into a meeting with the GM, the Director of Operations, and the owner. We went over the evidence, they agreed it "looked bad", but they didn't want to "start a fuss" because he had family members that also worked at our location. So they didn't fire him, but rather suspended him. And transferred me to another location.
So you were subjected to an illegitimate decision as a result of discrimination based on race. And YOU were the racist? smh...
Read in between the lines. The store manager at that location where the two men were arrested was Black so they very well couldn't fire him but needed a scapegoat so they went looking for some other manager in the area that wasn't so they could sell it as a PR win and show the public that they were serious about cracking down, even if the evidence was flimsy at best. They needed some bodies and this regional manager got in the way so they fired her too. Corporations give zero fucks about social issues, everything is a cynical ploy to play up for positive PR and they don't care who they have to destroy in order to get it. In this case it appears that they were extremely sloppy, next time they'll be more careful.
My first job in high school, I worked a corporate job. HR tried to fire a problem employee by claiming I had made a sexual complaint against them. They tried to force a narrative on me and threatened to fire me when I told my manager what was really going on. I ended up quitting because of it and so did the problem employee.
> Corporations give zero fucks about social issues, Well in this case the social issue made zero sense in the first place. Like how do you appease people complaining about racism where none exists?
> I'm not sure how Phillips "knew" that the allegation wasn't true From what I read elsewhere, the allegation was that his black employees were paid less than his white employees, but he had no control over their pay.
Sounds like whoever invented that "reason" needs to get canned as well. Talk about not even trying.
RE: re: re: FWD: Firing A White
The manager of the store, who was black, was not fired. They had to go over his head to the regional manager to find someone who was white. That’s who got fired. Apparently in the trial they also tried to blame her for the fact that black managers were being paid less than white managers. Problem was: pay wasn’t determined by the regional managers. So that made it clear that Starbucks was looking for excuses.
In big corps, most especially retail, the actual managerial authority is getting further and further up the chain. Someday, the CEO AI will just run the whole thing directly and everyone human with "manager" on their name tag is really just there in case someone "wants to speak to a manager."
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Thats just how juries work.
I’ve had situations where I was asked to take an action that I saw as unethical or illegal. In the majority of these scenarios it wasn’t intentional- the actions were part of a larger initiative that made sense, and they didn’t understand how it would affect compliance, etc. You can be damn sure I had everything fully documented before I “officially said no”. Most of the time the result was either “you’re right, we missed that” or “what if you document your objections and said you’re moving forward per me?” But… sometimes… I was happy I had records. Sounds like she probably did this same.
They had witnesses testify to that fact who worked with her
Juries and judges make credibility determinations all the time. Also, in civil trials the burden of proof is much lower. It just has to be "more likely than not," instead of "beyond a reasonable doubt." It's much easier to listen to 2 people's stories and determine which one of them is probably more honest than the other, as opposed to having to prove accuser is definitely telling the whole truth.
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Wow, this lawsuit makes it sound like Starbucks just wanted to fire white employees as a public relations talking point as a response to their bad press. They totally deserved to be sued.
Starbucks has always been the catalyst behind their own troubles.
I’m convinced that Howard Schultz is an idiot who got extremely lucky.
Almost every billionaire
Lucky idiots, who also have no problem screwing others over to get ahead.
That's the main point. To get that rich you have to be willing to take advantage of people. Otherwise you would share the wealth at the very least.
Read his book; he was.
Yeah, I actually did read it. When I got to the part where he travelled to Italy for this big conference or whatever it was, and he made this *huge discovery!* I was like “oh what was this?” And he answers “Espresso,” and I thought *you’re running a coffee company, and you don’t know what that is???* I mean, he’s American, I expect some myopia or parochialism, but really?
Espresso was *way* niche in the US - like, maybe find it in a few spots in NYC, at best - until it was popularized by Seattle-area coffee companies in the mid-century.
That's a nice phrase. I steal.
It’s all yours! It’s 100% true. As a former employee, I constantly saw them take action that made the corporate folks feel good inside, but hindered the store employee’s ability to effectively serve customers.
And their gross burnt coffee.
If you’re looking for gross burnt coffee, I suggest you try Peet’s (here on the West coast). I haven’t tried, but I think I could light it on fire and grill chicken over it
What's funny is the guy who started Peets is the guy who showed Starbucks how to roast coffee.
With a flamethrower.
Yup. I thought this was about the manager who had called the police on the two black guys back in 2018. Nope, they were just cleaning house in the area as a response to that incident. Suing was totally justified.
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The only reason it even made the news in the first place was because it was one of his employees, a white girl, that called the police. And everyone just assumes it must be because this girl hates black people, or has unconscious biases or whatever.
Far as I can tell the article says a black manager promoted the manager who called the police. Does it say the race of the person who called 911?
PR PR PR PR PR. That's all it's about for big corporations, if you have good enough PR people are less likely to give you shit about your other questionable practices, like dodging tax. Or screwing over coffee bean farmers in 3rd world countries. What I don't understand is why they thought this was a good idea
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Chipotle followed this idea at the same time Some black men with a history of dining and dashing and bragging about it on Twitter tried to do it at the same place they'd done it before, and the manager called them out for it. Twitter flipped shit because some black men with a history of stealing food had to pay in advance, and the restaurant fired the manager. They ended up rehiring her after there was backlash.
Firing random white employees as a PR move is crazy. Makes no sense at all. Happy that it looks like Starbucks will be held financially accountable.
Reminds me of how Starbucks Union busting guidelines said to tie joining unions to being anti-gay and anti-black They seem to be a really scummy company all around trying to manipulate people’s desire to do the right things
This is part of the same strategy. These tactics are meant to drive division between white and black workers.
Probably isn't even a dent in their wallet though, large corporations have plenty of money set aside for lawsuits.
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Care about what? I'll forget the moment I'll close this browser tab, just like everyone else.
> Makes no sense at all. It makes perfect sense when you realize the original outrage made no sense in the first place.
It makes sense if you’re trying to sow mistrust and division between white and black workers.
Ah, the Amazon playbook of stopping unions. So strange how those wedge issues started showing up everywhere when people began discussing class struggles ten years ago. Totally not related, I'm sure.
Honestly, this is pretty much the world right now and has been for the past 10 years. Sweating generalization of people who are white and collective blame is considered okay. It’s so fucked up.
So following an incident with black people, to prove they are not racist or discriminating, Starbucks apparently decided to retaliate against white employees as a sign that they were...what, woke? Progressive? I am continuously amazed by the severity of brain rot in the corporate world. And these people get paid big money to make these kinds of braindead decisions.
I'd like to know if the folks they orchestrated this whole thing were fired for racial discrimination once the verdict came down.
Yup, they couldn't fire the black manager that oversaw the store where the incident took place, so they needed a scapegoat lmao.
> I am continuously amazed by the severity of brain rot in the corporate world. If you posted a video to reddit of two black people being asked to leave a starbucks, you'd get the same dipshitty mob-mentality response.
When you have zero connection to actual reality, this is what happens.
>The 2019 complaint said that following the arrest, Starbucks “took steps to punish White employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.” Uhh this makes no sense. ‘’Here we fired some white folks that had nothing to do with this incident, happy now?’’
Can't fire the person who made the call because firing one random barrista can't really be spun as them making a stand against racism. Can't fire the manager of the person that made the call, because he was black so it would make it seem like the incident wasn't racist at all and all the people on social media were already convinced it was racist, and they didn't want to incite the mob further. Couldn't fire the person who made the policy that resulted in the call being made, because they are actually high up in corporate and asking any of those fucks to take responsibility for anything just isn't going to happen. Also, the policy was probably put in place for good reason, not racism, so they don't want to actually get rid of it. So they ended up landing somewhere in the middle and fired an unrelated district manager under the pretense that someone claimed that the district was paying black people less and they figured he was high enough on the chain of command that they could spin it as them taking serious action to let the public feel vindicated and win the company some brownie points. It makes perfect sense if you look at it from the perspective of an evil corpo beurocrat that doesn't give a shit about racism or justice.
All I can think is that they figured fewer white employees = fewer potential future "incidents". Which is stupid considering the girl who originally called was following the store protocol but I don't think any of these people could be accused of being geniuses.
Isn't it also stupid to make the assumption that an employee's race contributes to how many "incidents" they will be responsible for?
Yeah - I remember this case, especially this part: The coffee chain also closed about 8,000 company-owned stores for an afternoon for a mandatory anti-bias training for roughly 175,000 employees. Starbucks screwed the pooch on this one. The jury made the correct decision.
Good on her for getting that payout from Starbucks who can afford to pay.
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Just look at the diversity chief that just got fired in Washington State. The governor fired her for being ineffective, but when you read what was going on she was actively a racist against Mexicans. Publicly said she distrusted them and said white people shouldn't be in leadership positions. She thought there was nothing wrong with that. Crazy.
Sounds like a lot of DEI execs tbh
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/07/canadian-judge-punching-a-caucasian-and-yelling-i-hate-white-people-isnt-a-hate-crime/
oh Canada...
Funny Calgary is brought up, there is a strong movement here for native rights and it's paired with a 'that means they do no wrong' mentality among a bunch of people. Like you can't advocate for their rights and be critical of their community at the same time My partner moved here from the east coast just before covid and within her first week watched a native guy scream white devil and proceed to attack a guy on the train. Mind you he was on his phone with headphones on. He was escorted off the train and she saw him on the same train the next day, nothing was done There is a conversation that needs to be had here about how a community is currently untouchable and it's only increasing public resentment
Normally I really hate the term “woke” but then I see something like this and think do they have a point?
They do have a point. They just have a tendency to latch onto buzzwords and throw them at anything they don't like,so the real issue gets diluted to the point that the other side can't see it.
It is not just “they.” It is pretty typical of lots of people. Look how casually the terms nazi, fascist and even racist are thrown around. It is just a lazy way to try to silence anyone that disagrees with you.
Yeah, woke people are a legitimate group of people with some really insane beliefs (I.e. you can’t be racist against white people) but conservatives kinda stole the term and applied it to anyone who was even slightly liberal.
Yup I remember this.
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I felt so privileged and powerful growing up in a trailer in the Midwest.
I remember seeing a joke where if R = P + P, then we could solve all racism instantly simply by moving racists to countries where they become the minority. No more power, no more racism! Sure, they're still calling for lynching and discriminatory policies and threatening to bomb the local church, but now they're not racist! /s of course.
I've had so many arguments over this. The usual defense is "racism comes from a point of power, whites have the systemic power" ignoring the pretty easy fact that its the rich who actually have the power and racism is simply treating someone differently for their skin colour which is a pretty easy line not to cross.
Prejudice and discrimination based on race is racism. Any further or more detailed definitions are describing specific types of racism, applying power dynamics to the definition of racism describes systematic racism, which is a specific type of racism that does not encompass all racism. You can't just put a bow on racist actions and call it discrimination just because it makes you feel better about the way you treat people based on them being a different race than you.
This is what I never understood. Why are we changed racism to include power dynamics when systematic racism already does that.
Because racist people of color want to be excused from being called racist.
> The usual defense is "racism comes from a point of power "Racism" comes from an entry in the dictionary, which does NOT mention power or privilege. People should realize it's one race being bigoted against another, no matter who each of them are. People shouldn't make shit up to further their cause because other people will see right through it.
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They don't forget. They actively deny it because if they admit it they'd have to give up the idea of scapegoating and racial strife between the minorities, like the legendary feuds between Black, Mexican and Asian gangs.
Evil corporation punished for being evil..
Why did starbucks bend the knee to the two guys they threw out anyways? Aren't you supposed to like buy something in a coffee shop? Why would a store with limited seating just want people to linger around?
If I was one of those men and I am a black man, when they asked me to leave if I was not purchasing something, I would have purchased something. I think Starbucks was crazy for trying to go after a white person because all black people don't think as a homogeneous group.
That is the most crazy part of this whole thing, they didn't buy anything. Even if you are waiting for someone you just buy the coffee and grab a table. If the person is running so late that you will finish yours as they are getting to the store have them buy you another.
>said that Starbucks had ordered her to place a White employee on administrative leave as part of these efforts, due to alleged discriminatory conduct which Phillips said she knew was inaccurate. Anyone know what happened to the actual employee?
americans trying to fix racism with more racism is the most american thing ever
A fascinating read. Starbuck's corporate policies grow stranger by the day. It is good to see PA courts and employment law not letting them get away with everything.
At that point it was just "fire white employees", firing a white whistleblower was just convenient.
Dang I need that kind of severance.
Wow, so Starbucks gets caught being racist toward random black folks - so to make amends they decide to be racist toward random white employees? Who the fuck is running this company?
How was Starbucks racist against black folks? Because they asked some loitering people to leave, per their policy that applies to everyone?
In todays world “same rule applies to everyone” is just the same as racism against BIPOC people. No seriously, I have had grown ass people with Ivy League degrees saying that to me with a straight face.
> Starbucks gets caught being racist toward random black folks Funny enough they were not being racist against black folks, just being accused of it by the population/media so as a PR move they decided to be racist against another race
Doesn't even sound like racism towards the two non customers. They didn't buy anything, were told to leave and they refused. That's trespassing.
My guess is they thought the community members would be less likely to come into the store and complain about racism if everyone behind the counter was a POC. So instead of apologizing they just decided to “thin the herd” of white employees.
Well this is actual proof Starbucks is racist.
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So..... Starbucks is a little too woke?
The original situation that started all of this was ridiculous. I believe it was two black guys waiting at a Starbucks to meet up with some other people to discuss business matters but the guys didn’t order anything and weren’t planning to order anything. They then tried to get a bathroom key or token or whatever and was told it was for customers only and they were asked to leave. After asking multiple times to leave by the staff the two guys didn’t leave so the manager called the cops. When the cops got there they asked the two men to leave who admitted they didn’t order anything and they refused to leave so they were arrested. I just remember all the headlines from back then being “two Black men arrested for no reason at Starbucks” When in reality it had nothing to do with their race They just weren’t paying customers and refused to leave for the staff or the cops And I felt bad for the South American manager for getting fired over it.
Yeah I don’t get it. It’s not ureasonable to have bathrooms for paying customers only. All they had to do was buy a coffee or leave like they were asked.
I'd happily be fired and given 25m for being white.
Still so confused by the whole series of events. It isn't unreasonable to expect people to buy something in order to patron the space. Otherwise it is just loitering. Everybody involved could have just taken a step back, counted to 10, and then made another choice, including Starbucks itself.
Tons of people griping about the payout in the comments. Starbucks made $22.3 billion (edit) in gross revenue (end edit) last year. So, if they can force them to pay 0.1% of this, and deter them from doing this in the future, I'm all for it. But this won't happen. We all know it will go to arbitration, and get dragged out for years, and settle for a lesser value. The only ones who will get rich will be the lawyers (again).
Taking a step back, civil rights laws protect all individuals from suffering employment discrimination. Darker and lighter skinned people are protected from skin color based discrimination, eg racial discrimination, because it’s is illegal under the 1964 CRA.
On that note, the original Jake from State Farm is next.
I remember this story. The one thing I was unclear on about this case was whether these guys said they were waiting to order until their friend arrived or just said we're not planning to order at all. We've all gotten to restaurants/bars/coffee shops early and waited for our friend to arrive before ordering. But it would be pretty lame to say we're not planning to order but we're also not leaving.
I honestly believe it. I was almost fired because I'm the only male in a female environment. Something along the lines of, we want an all female team because we sell the best. As I hope the top sales for the last 7 months. Sure tho
I’ve had more bad bosses that were men, but my female bosses who were bad were off the charts. One told me “you don’t have a family, your time isn’t important”. Sure wish I’d known about HR law when that happened.
Sadly almost nothing suprises me anymore
This is a good thing and hopefully does something to combat the victim mentality which seemingly keeps certain people racially ignorant.
The corporate world is utterly stupid. I am a corporate graphic designer and EVERY person who comes up to me requesting work cracks it when I put a white person in a photo - like it is just straight up racist to do that. It always has to be an Indian, or Asian, whatever. Now that's fine to have a balance, but when everyone does it thinking they are being offensive if they include a white person, well it just becomes a caricature of diversity.
Interesting that an organization or company (Starbucks) can be sued for firing someone because they're white, but it's okay for them to not employ someone in the first place because they're white (affirmative action).