White Starbucks Manager Wins $25m Payout After Staff Refused Bathroom Access To Two Black Men

A jury found Starbucks guilty of firing a white manager because of her skin color, and the business was ordered to pay the manager $25.6 million.

Two Black guys, Rashon Nelson, and Donte Robinson, were detained on April 12th, 2018 in a Starbucks in Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia.

The alleged behavior that prompted staff to call the police? While they waited for a third participant in their business meeting to arrive, they asked if they may use the cafe's restroom.

Reuters

Shannon Phillips, a manager at Starbucks, was fired when her staff denied Nelson and Robinson entrance to the restroom.

She later won a lawsuit against Starbucks, alleging discrimination on the basis of her race.

In order to wait for the third meeting participant to arrive, Robinson and Nelson reportedly sat down at a table before placing their orders. One of them requested to use a bathroom, but a café staff refused. 

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The guys were then approached and asked if they needed anything; in response, they said they were awaiting a third person, according to The Guardian.

Nelson and Robinson were ordered to leave before their business partner even showed up, and when they refused, they quickly looked up to see police approaching them, according to NBC Philadelphia.

Social media was flooded with recordings of the arrests, and calls to boycott Starbucks, the restaurant accused of racism, intensified.

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Democratic mayor Jim Kenney said the episode "emplifying what racial discrimination looks like in 2018."

Phillips was fired shortly after the event, despite not being personally engaged and managing almost 100 Starbucks stores in Philadelphia, Delaware, Maryland, and South Jersey at the time.

In order to prevent reputational harm to the cafe, Phillips later chose to sue Starbucks, claiming that her termination was due to her race as a white woman.

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In the case, Phillips claimed that a superior had directed her to suspend a white manager who was in charge of other stores in Philadelphia rather than the Rittenhouse location, despite the superior's accusation that the manager had engaged in discriminatory behavior, which Phillips insisted was untrue.

In contrast, Starbucks said in a press release that the manager of the Rittenhouse location, a Black man, "never intended for these men to be arrested." The New York Times quotes Phillips as saying that the employee had received a promotion.

Phillips was fired when she failed to comply with her superior's demands, and according to reports, she was given no further explanation than "The situation is not recoverable."

Reuters

Starbucks said in court documents that Phillips, who had been promoted to her position after serving for six years as a district manager in Ohio with "exemplary performance," was let go because, in the wake of the Rittenhouse incident, she "failed in every aspect" of being "a leader who could perform."

Phillips contended, however, that she did perform the duties of the position, such as assisting in securing protection for workers afraid to go to work due to the protests against Starbucks, and that she was fired due to her skin tone.

Phillips received a $25 million punitive damage judgment along with $600,000 in compensatory damages on Monday, June 12. 

Starbucks was found guilty by the jury of breaching Phillips' federal rights and of racial discrimination on the part of the business.

Laura Mattiacci, Phillips' attorney, noted that Phillips was very delighted with the decision.

The trespassing and disturbance charges against Nelson and Robinson were dismissed, and they were set free. 

They later came to a financial agreement with Starbucks and collaborated with the business on new guidelines and inquiries into any claims of discrimination.

Robinson said: "I want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. So what I want is for a young man or young men to not be traumatized by this and instead motivated, inspired."