November 18, 2004
Abercrombie & Fitch Settles Discrimination Lawsuit
Sweet karma. This one brings a smile to my face. WASP clothing brand -- Abercrombie & Fitch -- has actually decided to settle their lawsuit, and will pay out a hefty sum of $40- to $50-million to former employees who levied a myriad of discriminatory labor practices against the apparel company. From the New York Times:
- Abercrombie & Fitch, one of the nation's trendiest retailers, settled race and sex discrimination lawsuits yesterday, agreeing to alter its well-known collegiate, all-American - and largely white - image by adding more blacks, Hispanics and Asians to its marketing materials.
After a federal judge in San Francisco approved the class-action settlement yesterday, the two sides announced an agreement that calls for Abercrombie & Fitch to pay $40 million to several thousand minority and female plaintiffs. Abercrombie also agreed to hire 25 diversity recruiters and a vice president for diversity and to pursue benchmarks so that its hiring and promotion of minorities and women reflect its applicant pool.
In an unusual step, the settlement calls for Abercrombie to increase diversity not just in hiring and promotions, but also in its advertisements and catalogs, which have long featured models who were overwhelmingly white and who seemed to have stepped off the football field or out of fraternities or sororities. Plaintiffs' lawyers said they insisted that the company agree to add more diversity to its marketing materials so as not to discourage minorities from applying for jobs.
Maybe their catalogues will start to resemble a reality-based America in contrast to those fetishized Anglo images and representations they've become renown for (see image above)? I don't hold out a lot of hope that this episode will fundamentally transform their business culture and marketing practices, the reasons for which I'll outline in a blog entry later on. But in this day and age, you take what small measure of righteousness you can get. In the meantime, click here to listen to the NPR story. More on this later.