Five Mississippi-based strippers will split more than $3 million awarded to them for back pay while working in strip club where they allegedly endured racially charged harassment from management.
The attorney for Danny’s Downtown Cabaret in Jackson, Bill Walter, said he intends to ask a federal judge to reduce the award and if the judge doesn’t agree, he plans to appeal.
“Obviously, the client is disappointed in the verdict,” Walter said.
Via NBC News:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Danny’s years ago, saying the Jackson club limited when black women could work and fined them $25 if they didn’t show up for a shift.
White strippers were allowed flexible schedules and were not hit with fines for missing work.
The report states that Danny’s manager used racial slurs against a Black dancer, and the owners forced only the Black strippers to work at another Jackson club they owned, Black Diamonds, where working conditions, pay and security were worse.
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate ruled in the discrimination case last year. After a trial that lasted nearly a week, jurors decided the women would split $3.3 million for back pay and past and future suffering.
“This case shows the EEOC will sue any employer, operating any type of business, who violates federal anti-discrimination laws, especially those who will not stop discriminating even after being given repeated chances to do so,” said Marsha Rucker, the EEOC’s regional attorney in Birmingham, Alabama, in a statement “The jury … sent a powerful message to Danny’s and any employer who thinks they are above the law.”
Rucker said in a statement that the commission “will protect employees in any industry who are subjected to such blatant and repeated discrimination.”
