Reference no: EM132290807
Topic-: Hooters Case: Texas man sues to become a Hooters girl
A Texas man has filed a lawsuit against Hooters restaurant for not allowing men to work as waiters in the popular restaurant chain. Nikolai Grushevski from Corpus Christi, Texas, has filed this lawsuit against Hooters seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit filed at the Federal court in Corpus Christi claims the following:
"Hooters tries to circumvent the law by referring to its waiters as 'Hooters Girls.' Hooters is wrong...Just as Southwest Airlines attempted nearly three decades ago with stewardesses, the waiter's position addressed herein is being limited to females by an employer '...who merely wishes to exploit female sexuality as a marketing tool to attract customers and insure profitability.'"
Grushevski filed this lawsuit after he tried to apply for a “Hooters Girls” job at a local restaurant. The manager told him that Hooters doesn’t hire men as waiters. Grushevski says in the suit that he is offended by the decision and wants Hooters to give the same rights to men as a food server.
A similar suit was filed against Hooters in 1997, when seven men from Chicago filed a $2-million claim against Hooters for not making the kitchen staff and bartender “gender neutral.” Hooters paid the damages and reversed their policy, but in this case they are not willing to change their stance. Hooters spokeswoman, Alexis Aleshire responded to media questions in an email, saying one must be a woman in order to be a Hooters Girl. Mike McNeil, vice president of marketing for Hooters of America, issued the following comment, which was enclosed in Aleshire’s email:
"The good news is that when this happened the last time, Hooters benefited from an avalanche of positive publicity and public support for keeping Hooters Girls, well, girls. If we lose this go around, you can next expect hairy legged guys in the Rockettes to line up and male models in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. You wonder why people just can't leave good things alone."
Chapter-2 Equal Opportunity and Diversity
The guarantee of equal employment opportunity is given through title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was ameded in 1972 to Equal Employment Opportunity Act and to the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to grant equal employment opportunity without regard to race, gender,ethnic origin or color.
Other acts which deal with various aspects of employment discrimination have been passed from time to time to protect the employees against discrimination on grounds of disability, age, pregnancy, and equal pay for equal work to both genders. Acts like Medical and family leave act as well as Occupational Health and Safety Act also grant certain rights to the employees to better work conditions.
Illegal discrimination is violaion of any of the anti discrimination laws laid down by the government. Legal discrimination is the case where the law may put a category of employees in a favourable position owing to their suitability for that particular role.( such as fixing a certain minimum height or weight or vision for a military role).
Difference between legal and illegal discrimination at workplace:
In legal discrimination employer are not allowed to post advertisement which specify age preference for candidates while in illegal discrimination while in illegal discrimination cannot make assumption based on age of candidate.
In legal discrimination employer cannot force to employee to certain perform certain customer of religion, Example: you cannot disallow any employee to wear their clothes that according to their religion. While in illegal discrimination company cannot hold employment opportunity only because they have relationship with certain race people.
In legal discrimination pregnancy bases discrimination is not allowed this must be treated as normally illness or decease while in illegal discrimination employer cannot rule out personal traits and abilities only because person is disabled.
The discrimination basis that are banned by the law are related to the age. gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion and mental ability.
Required: Why would Hooters settle their case out-of-court? Explain your reasoning. Write 300 words.