Former Hooters Waitress Awarded $250,000 in Racial Discrimination Case

At first glance at simply the title alone I would think to call this just another case of someone wanting to get money for nothing, but you really need to read the article that I found on NBC regarding the situation.

Farryn Johnson, who is African-American, was fired from her Baltimore restaurant job in August 2013 because "Hooters prohibits African-American Hooters Girls from wearing blond highlights in their hair,"

To be completely honest I find this very hard to believe that Hooters  would in fact have policy stating that an African American woman is not allowed to have highlights, the thought alone tells anyone that they would be left open to lawsuit for that, but on their own web page their policy states:

Want Hightlights?

Always be sure that highlights are complimentary to your original hair color. Drastically different hightlighted tones or colors in your hair is not attractive or permitted as part of the Hooters Girl Image.

Wait... I don't see where this states anything about race or maybe I'm blind? What I am seeing here is the company not really being in the wrong, but the specific manager that made the call on the behalf of the company and grossly took their policy out of context. The policy clearly states that you need to color your hair in such a fashion that it compliments your natural hair color, I am no expert in hair color or even what color is natural to certain ethnic groups but I have alway noticed that brown or black hair would be the norm for for an African American woman. I can show you plenty of celebrity African American women that have blond highlights in their hair and it looks great

Dascha Polanco black hair with blonde highlights

Michelle Williams

I am only going to put two pictures up, but tell me that their highlights don't complement their natural hair color? What I am seeing is discrimination from the manager not the company, the manager stated: 

While other women were allowed to highlight their hair, the restaurant manager told Johnson she couldn't be at work with blond streaks because it didn't look "natural" on African-Americans, the suit said.

"The manager at the time literally said, 'You can't have blond because black people don't have blond hair,'"

Wow, I don't blame the woman at all for going ahead and filling a lawsuit, but personally I don't think that the company should be held to blame for this, I think that the manager should be and yes no matter what Hooters is going to take the fall and pay up but this manager should not be employed and viewed as a liability now.

Another seriously messed up part about this case is the settled upon amount of $250,000. The actual amount isn't what irritates me here but who got how much of it:

"Ms. Johnson did not receive $250,000 in back pay, but rather only $11,886.40, while her attorneys on the other hand received approximately $244,000 in attorneys' fees," it said.

Johnson and her lawyer said they were happy with the decision."

Of course the lawyer was happy with the decision!!! That jackass took damn near all of it! I know there are contracts in place with the law firm that state a percentage of the settlement that they will be entitled to and other fees that they charge that could range from $100-$600 per hour in the Baltimore area and if they had an expert witness it could cost up to $10,000 so we don't really know what the costs were for the law firm or how much they actually took as profit, but from the looks of it, I think the woman should have taken more than just $11k from this.