FLORIDA—Attorney General Ashley Moody is accusing Starbucks of discriminating against its white employees and has called for an investigation into the hiring practices of the popular coffee company and whether it constitutes an abusive work environment.
According to recent data from multiple sources, there are between 782 and 893 Starbucks stores in Florida. According to the Starbucks website, the Miami, Orlando, and Jacksonville areas each have approximately 50 Starbucks locations, while Tallahassee and Pensacola have around 18 each.
Ms. Moody has requested that the Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR) investigate Starbucks Coffee Company’s hiring practices, which she alleges discriminate on the basis of race. Moody claims the firm’s hiring practices go beyond aspirational goals and instead constitute unlawful quotas.
“The bottom line is hiring practices using race-based quotas are illegal. Starbucks has published publicly available policies that raise sufficient concerns that they are using a quota system and that compensation is tied to that system,” said Ms Moody.
“The Florida Commission on Human Relations has a duty to investigate these concerns to ensure that Florida civil rights laws are not violated.”
The complaint filed with the FCHR cites a recent U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College in which the court ruled racial discrimination “demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.”
The complaint states that Students for Fair Admissions addressed government policies, but SCOTUS also addressed claims under federal civil rights laws, which, according to the complaint, apply in many cases to private employers.
FCHR is charged with enforcing Florida’s civil rights laws, which are “modeled after and interpreted consistent with federal civil rights laws.”
According to Ms Moody, Starbucks’ publicly available policies pledge to have Black, Indigenous, and People of Color represent at least 30 percent of all corporate levels and 40 percent of all retail and manufacturing roles by 2025. According to the AG, Starbucks executives’ compensation is tied to inclusion and diversity objectives.
“The Starbucks policies described above appear on their face to be racial quotas. They set specific race-based employment targets,” the complaint states.
“And to the extent Starbucks suggests that these are merely aspirational ‘goals,’ and not quotas, that claim would be hard to square with Starbucks’s decision to tie executive compensation to meeting those targets.”
Moody said that Starbucks’s publicly available policies raise sufficient concerns to merit the FCHR investigating to ensure Florida law is being followed.
“As part of that investigation, the Commission may also wish to review the “anti-bias” training provided by Starbucks to its employees. According to Starbucks’s own website, one purpose of this training is to convince white employees of Starbucks that they are “the problem,” said Ms Moody.
“Depending on the facts revealed in your investigation, the Commission should evaluate whether the circumstances rise to the level of an “abusive work environment” in violation of the Florida Civil Rights Act.”
Read the full complaint here.
