N.Y. Landmark Pays $2M to Settle Sex Claims
Tavern on the Green Allegedly Subjected Employees to Sexual Harassment, Racism
By ALICE GOMSTYN
ABC NEWS Business Unit
June 3, 2008
One of New York City's most famous restaurants will pay $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit over sexual harassment and racism allegations.
New York City's Tavern on the Green settles discrimination lawsuit.
Tavern on the Green, the 74-year-old café overlooking Manhattan's Central Park, is accused of "severe and pervasive harassment," including one manager's grabbing of an employee's breasts and buttocks and his repeated use of racial slurs and lewd sexual references.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against the restaurant in September 2007. The EEOC announced the settlement on Tuesday.
EEOC lawyer Kam S. Wong said that some 50 former and current employees will be eligible for compensation from the settlement.
"Even a high-end establishment is not an exception to the world of harassment and retaliation, unfortunately," Wong, a senior trial attorney with the EEOC, told ABC News. "A settlement as significant as this one should send a message to all employers that EEOC takes seriously and will strenuously enforce the laws against discrimination in the workplace."
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The settlement also requires the restaurant to adopt an anti-discrimination policy and provide anti-discrimination training to its employees. According to a court document, the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing.
In a statement e-mailed to ABC News, the restaurant said it was "pleased this long-pending matter has been amicably settled" and maintained that "Tavern on the Green always has been and will continue to be committed to providing a safe, non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory work environment for its employees."
According to the statement, the management staff cited in the lawsuit "have not been associated with the restaurant for years."
The complaint filed against Tavern on the Green revolved largely around allegations against Leon Drogy, the restaurant's former director of operations. According to the complaint, Drogy engaged in "repeated sexual touching" of restaurant hostess Martha Nyakim Gatkuoth, including grabbing her breasts and buttocks.
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Obama rejects pastor
Obama rejects pastor in latest Church flap
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Friday faced new questions over his Chicago church, after video emerged of a pastor mocking his rival Hillary Clinton with racially tinged rhetoric.
Obama rejected the remarks by Father Michael Pfleger, made in the same pulpit at Trinity United Church of Christ as inflammatory sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which pitched the campaign into turmoil earlier this year.
In a guest appearance at the church Sunday, Pfleger mocked Clinton for appearing to cry days before the New Hampshire primary in January, saying she was on the verge of tears because "there is a black man stealing my show."
"She always thought, 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife, I'm white and this is mine,' Pfleger said in the dramatic sermon, which now has 100,000 hits on YouTube.
"And then out of nowhere came him, Barack Obama. And she said: 'Damn, where did you come from? I'm white, I'm entitled, there's a black man stealing my show!'"
"She wasn't the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying," said Pfleger, a white Catholic priest.
Obama, seeking to quell the controversy that could provide ammunition to Republican critics, quickly rejected Pfleger's rhetoric in a statement Thursday night.
"As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that unites us," he said.
"That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."
It was unclear how deeply the new drama would damage Obama's campaign as he stands on the verge of capturing the Democratic nomination, with the last two primary votes on Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota.
Videos of Wright earlier this year claiming AIDS was a racist government plot and suggesting black citizens sing "God Damn America" to protest their treatment by whites threw his campaign into major damage control mode.
The Illinois senator initially declined to reject the pastor, using the row to make a wider comment about race in America in a speech in March.
Later, however, he later rejected Wright after a round of media appearances by the pastor reignited the affair.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Friday faced new questions over his Chicago church, after video emerged of a pastor mocking his rival Hillary Clinton with racially tinged rhetoric.
Obama rejected the remarks by Father Michael Pfleger, made in the same pulpit at Trinity United Church of Christ as inflammatory sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which pitched the campaign into turmoil earlier this year.
In a guest appearance at the church Sunday, Pfleger mocked Clinton for appearing to cry days before the New Hampshire primary in January, saying she was on the verge of tears because "there is a black man stealing my show."
"She always thought, 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife, I'm white and this is mine,' Pfleger said in the dramatic sermon, which now has 100,000 hits on YouTube.
"And then out of nowhere came him, Barack Obama. And she said: 'Damn, where did you come from? I'm white, I'm entitled, there's a black man stealing my show!'"
"She wasn't the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying," said Pfleger, a white Catholic priest.
Obama, seeking to quell the controversy that could provide ammunition to Republican critics, quickly rejected Pfleger's rhetoric in a statement Thursday night.
"As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that unites us," he said.
"That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."
It was unclear how deeply the new drama would damage Obama's campaign as he stands on the verge of capturing the Democratic nomination, with the last two primary votes on Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota.
Videos of Wright earlier this year claiming AIDS was a racist government plot and suggesting black citizens sing "God Damn America" to protest their treatment by whites threw his campaign into major damage control mode.
The Illinois senator initially declined to reject the pastor, using the row to make a wider comment about race in America in a speech in March.
Later, however, he later rejected Wright after a round of media appearances by the pastor reignited the affair.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Desmond Tutu: Equality of U.S. blacks an 'illusion'
Desmond Tutu: Equality of U.S. blacks an 'illusion'
jwsheffield@satx.rr.com
View profile May 14, 1:32 pm
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.episcopal
From: "jwsheffi...@satx.rr.com"
Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 10:32:14 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Wed, May 14 2008 1:32 pm
Subject: Desmond Tutu: Equality of U.S. blacks an 'illusion'
By Storer H. Rowley | Tribune reporter
May 14, 2008
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu weighed in on the presidential
campaign Tuesday in Chicago, praising America's ability to produce the
first viable African-American presidential candidate while describing
the nation as haunted by a racial divide that still offers blacks what
he called only "the illusion of equality."
"You are a crazy country," Tutu, 76, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1984, said in an interview with the Tribune. "You're a country that
has I think some of the most generous people I've ever come across in
the world."
But he chided Americans for getting "very, very upset" with the pastor
of Sen. Barack Obama, noting that Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. "may have
said more crudely what, actually, almost every African-American would
have wanted to say. I mean that is how they feel in your country, that
race ... is a very, very real issue."
"And I think on the whole you keep trying to pretend it isn't," he
added, noting the issue will haunt Americans until there is a way to
talk honestly about race, such as holding a reconciliation forum.
Tutu, who headed South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
probing human-rights abuses under apartheid, was here to receive the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation's Lincoln Leadership
Prize, presented by Oprah Winfrey.
Unlike in South Africa's apartheid era, he said, where blacks were
treated as "nothing," in America, "You say to them, 'You're equal, and
the sky's the limit.' And they keep bumping their heads against this
thing that's stopping them from reaching out to the stars."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-tutu-obamamay14,0,...
jwsheffield@satx.rr.com
View profile May 14, 1:32 pm
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.episcopal
From: "jwsheffi...@satx.rr.com"
Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 10:32:14 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Wed, May 14 2008 1:32 pm
Subject: Desmond Tutu: Equality of U.S. blacks an 'illusion'
By Storer H. Rowley | Tribune reporter
May 14, 2008
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu weighed in on the presidential
campaign Tuesday in Chicago, praising America's ability to produce the
first viable African-American presidential candidate while describing
the nation as haunted by a racial divide that still offers blacks what
he called only "the illusion of equality."
"You are a crazy country," Tutu, 76, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1984, said in an interview with the Tribune. "You're a country that
has I think some of the most generous people I've ever come across in
the world."
But he chided Americans for getting "very, very upset" with the pastor
of Sen. Barack Obama, noting that Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. "may have
said more crudely what, actually, almost every African-American would
have wanted to say. I mean that is how they feel in your country, that
race ... is a very, very real issue."
"And I think on the whole you keep trying to pretend it isn't," he
added, noting the issue will haunt Americans until there is a way to
talk honestly about race, such as holding a reconciliation forum.
Tutu, who headed South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
probing human-rights abuses under apartheid, was here to receive the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation's Lincoln Leadership
Prize, presented by Oprah Winfrey.
Unlike in South Africa's apartheid era, he said, where blacks were
treated as "nothing," in America, "You say to them, 'You're equal, and
the sky's the limit.' And they keep bumping their heads against this
thing that's stopping them from reaching out to the stars."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-tutu-obamamay14,0,...
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