The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit against Lawry's Restaurants, Inc., saying the company systematically rejected male applicants because of their gender.
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Download NowLawry's, a California-based corporation, operates restaurants in Las Vegas, Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Corona del Mar, California.
In its lawsuit, the EEOC alleges that Lawry's instituted a policy of hiring only women for server positions in 1938 and failed to update the policy. The EEOC's suit seeks back pay and compensatory and punitive damages.
"Lawry's practice of hiring only women as servers, with their period costumes, pre-dates the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964," says EEOC Los Angeles Regional Attorney Anna Y. Park. "Nonetheless, the practice of denying men the opportunity to work in the higher-paying server jobs is blatant sex discrimination."