Local Law Firms Home > Employment Law News > Wet Seal Sued For Employment Law Violations Wet Seal Inc. has been sued by three former employees who charge the retail giant with violations of employment law regarding race-based discrimination. They accuse the company of firing African-American store managers as part of a management policy of creating an image of a retailer selling clothes to young women. The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Santa Ana, CA alleges that senior management at Wet Seal adopted a policy of discrimination against black store managers from 2008 onwards to propagate a new brand image. The court documents quote a senior VP for store operations who toured 20 Philadelphia area and Maryland stores and then sent an email telling subordinates that African Americans dominate in store teams and they needed to get more diversity. Nicole Cogdell is one of the plaintiffs fired from her job at a store in the King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania the day after the aforementioned email was sent. She had just been promoted to the position of store manager a couple of months before being fired. Cogdell claims she overheard the senior VP saying that she wanted a store manager who was blond and had blue eyes. Cogdell was then fired and replaced with a white employee who got paid more, even though the new manager had less experience than Cogdell. A second plaintiff, Myriam Saint-Hilaire, was also working in the same King of Prussia store in Pennsylvania. The third plaintiff is Kai Hawkins, who worked at one of the company's stores in Cherry Hill, NJ. The lawsuit the three plaintiffs filed seeks class-action status on behalf of 250 black store managers, some of whom are still employed. The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund is supporting the plaintiffs in their bid to get Wet Seal to pay for punitive damages and back pay. Wet Seal responded with a statement that the company was an equal opportunity employer and denies all charges of racial discrimination. Did you know? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it an employment law violation to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, nationality and sex. Title VII of the Civil Right Act requires all employers with 15 or more employees to abide by the laws against discrimination, which includes retaliation against an employee who complains about discrimination.
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