Posted on 04/19/2005 11:51:31 AM PDT by Born Conservative
PHILADELPHIA - A former salesman for the Philadelphia Eagles Radio Network was awarded $614,000 in a discrimination case after being given a book that advised blacks selling to whites not to wear Afros or African-style clothing.
Viacom Inc. and Infinity Broadcasting, the network's parent companies, appealed the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ruling to a state appellate court, a lawyer for plaintiff Shawn Brooks said Tuesday.
"It's been a very tough road, standing up for what you believe in," said Brooks, 34, a native of Camden, N.J., who said his family is of mixed race.
Supervisors at the radio network, which is affiliated with WYSP-FM, distributed an advice book called "New Dress for Success" by John T. Molloy in May 2001, Brooks said. The book also advises Hispanic salespeople to "avoid any hair tonic that tends to give a greasy or shiny look to the hair; this also triggers a negative reaction."
Brooks complained to a supervisor, but got no response, the Human Rights Commission found in its Feb. 28 ruling. He resigned less than a year into the job, despite the potential to earn $130,000 a year in salary and commissions.
"This is the most egregious case of published documentation on stereotyping and bias toward race, gender and religion in the workplace the commissioners have seen in a long time," commission Chairman Stephen A. Glassman said.
Judith E. Harris, a Philadelphia attorney who represented Infinity in the case, did not immediately return a telephone message Tuesday.
After being out of work for two years, Brooks is now a pharmaceutical salesman for Pfizer Inc. in Delaware.
"I thought more people would be incensed or insulted. It's in writing, right there for people to read for themselves," Brooks said.
So employers can no longer dictate what dress their employees when they are representing the company in public?
$614,000 because he was given a book? Our legal system is way out of control...
That was a pretty mainstream book (Molloy's book).
"Afros or African-style clothing" are about as professional as putting a bone through your nose. I guess they should have let him fail.
You can impose a uniform dress code but you can't create different dress codes for employees of different races.
Maybe the company deserved it. Afterall if they hire people so dumb that they have to be given a book to tell them to be careful not to dress in ways that might offend someone they are trying to sell to, the company needs to to revamp it hiring not hand out books.
Now I've heard everything.
When I worked in radio there was a very specific dress code for the sales force...........and race had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was even moreso in TV.
If you do mainstream selling dressed like Superfly or Willie Nelson you ain't gonna cut it!
Ez, on the Willie thang............... :0)
lololol
Jeff
"You can impose a uniform dress code but you can't create different dress codes for employees of different races."
Cool! I'm going Kilt shopping! Woo-hoo!
So employers can no longer dictate what dress their employees when they are representing the company in public?"
This will come as no surprise to straight landlords....
It's hard to tell from this article exactly what the book says, but if it really said, "AAs please don't...", "Hispanics , never..." it implies expected behaviours for specific races and they should have know they would have been sued for insulting salespeople.
If the book just says" don't have greasy hair or an Afro or wear African native clothes when you sell to white people or you will loose sales, and they lost the lawsuit for that, we are in big trouble. It is very possible the second happened.
(BTW: anybody remember the days when Whites had 1st Amendment rights? Is that still in the bill of rights? Ward Churchill anyone? Ahh, he was smart, he claimed he was AI. Obvious the BORs had race exclusions added to it.)
Also, you would think a commission system would weed out the salespeople with no common sense.
Um, okay......
Someone's taken away 1st Amendment rights from white people?
BTW, this case has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment.
Really. Why work when you can file lawsuits.
Is it constitutional for punishment to be meted out by a commission, a part of the executive branch of government not the judicial branch?
The next big lawsuits will be from those who have tattoos all over their faces, i.e., cat faces, etc. saying they are being discriminated against because of what they look like.
Head spinning -- pea soup spewing -- insert Dean Scream here!
SHEESH!
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