Fired for being white? Starbucks must pay a former employee $25.6 million
A federal court ruled that Starbucks must pay $25.6 million to a former employee after firing her for being White in relation to 2018 racial incident.
The case of Shannon Phillips has caught the attention of the United States. According to a report by The Washington Post, the woman suffered discrimination from Starbucks when she was fired “for being White.”
According to the aforementioned report, after almost thirteen years working for the famous coffee franchise as supervisor of store managers in Philadelphia, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland, Shannon was fired for racial reasons after the arrest of two African-American men at a Philadelphia branch in 2018.
According to the lawsuit, that year, the branch manager called authorities to remove two African-American men who were sitting in the coffee shop without ordering anything and refusing to leave.
The incident caused the head of the company to publicly apologize and sparked protests demanding the resignation of the person in charge of the store. As a supervisor, Phillips put a new management team in place at the Philadelphia store. However, she opposed her superiors request to fire another White employee who had been accussed of racial discrimination which she believed to be false. She was forced to comply with the order but she was fired a short time later and only told it that “the situation is not recoverable.”
The company argued that Shannon’s dismissal occurred after some African-American managers pointed out that they were paid less than Whites; however, the woman claims that the company actually took steps to retaliate “against herself and another White employee in an effort to ‘convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.’”
You may also be interested in: The 10 Highest Paying Jobs in California
Starbucks will pay $25.6 million to ex-employee after firing her for being White
More than five years after that event, last Monday, a federal court judge determined that, indeed, Shannon was fired for racial reasons, granting her damages of $25.6 million dollars .
According to the verdict, Starbucks must pay Shannon $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages for violating federal and state discrimination laws. In addition, her attorneys are seeking an extra payment of three million for back and future wages and another more than one million to cover defense fees.