For many women, pregnancy is a time of excitement. From shopping for baby clothes to stocking up on all the necessary baby gear, battling morning sickness, and making it to a never-ending stream of prenatal checkups, pregnant women have a lot on their plate without having to worry about being discriminated against, especially from their employer. Unfortunately for one Rowlett, Texas woman, she endured pregnancy discrimination first hand from her employer, a sports bar called Nick’s Sports Grill.
For many women, pregnancy is a time of excitement. From shopping for baby clothes to stocking up on all the necessary baby gear, battling morning sickness, and making it to a never-ending stream of prenatal checkups, pregnant women have a lot on their plate without having to worry about being discriminated against, especially from their employer. Unfortunately for one Rowlett, Texas woman, she endured pregnancy discrimination first hand from her employer, a sports bar called Nick’s Sports Grill.
According to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of the woman, Taylor King, the sport’s bar discriminated against the pregnant bartender by not allowing King to “wear capri pants and a long top instead of hot pants and a tight shirt.” Fortunately for King, the lawsuit resulted in the sports bar being fined $24,000, which will go to King. In addition, Nick’s Sports Bar is required to provide other relief as part of the settlement and will have to do the following:
“Disseminate specific parts of its employee handbook to all employees; provide annual training on pregnancy and other forms of discrimination; report all complaints of discrimination to the EEOC for the decree’s term; impose discipline up to termination on any manager who discriminates based on sex or permits such conduct to occur under his or her supervision; and post a notice on employee bulletin boards about the decree, explaining procedures for reporting discrimination.”
But what happened, exactly? Well, according to the lawsuit, Nick’s Sports Bar, also known as Off the Air II Inc., tried to force King to wear a tight, revealing uniform even as her body continued to change due to her pregnancy. The lawsuit alleged that when King began “wearing capri pants instead of the usual hot pants uniform and added a second layer of clothes to the usual tight top because of her pregnancy, the general manager told her that the owner would not approve, and forced her off the job.” It should be noted that the mandatory uniform at the sports bar, according to the employee handbook, consists of “tight, body-hugging shirt and short hot pants,” two articles of clothing that few pregnant women would feel comfortable wearing day in and day out.
Upon being forced off the job, the EEOC argued that the treatment King allegedly endured violated “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.” However, filing the lawsuit wasn’t the EEOC’s first plan. Instead, before filing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the EEOC tried to “reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.” Those efforts failed to produce desirable results, which prompted the formal lawsuit.
Sources:
Texas Bar to Pay $24K to Settle ‘Hot Pants’ Pregnancy Discrimination Suit
When her ‘hot pants’ didn’t fit, pregnant bartender lost her job. Now she gets $24K
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