More than 900 Starbucks locations in Florida engaged in hiring discrimination

Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed a lawsuit against giant coffee shop retailer Starbucks, claiming the company is engaging in “race-based quotas” in hiring employees.

The civil legal action against Starbucks was filed in the 10th Judicial Circuit Court in Highlands County. The 21-page lawsuit doesn’t single out one particular incident or an individual. But it points to a series of practices Starbucks has engaged in the past five years while taking part “in a pattern or practice of discrimination.”

The filing said Starbucks established racial quotas for hiring, paid employees different wages because of their race, tied compensation to race-based mentorship programs “only to a person of certain favored races,” and excluded “people of disfavored races” from many of those programs.

While many of the Starbucks diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs were aimed at including underrepresented minorities, the lawsuit said that still excludes others. “All racial discrimination, even for supposedly benign purposes, is invidious and unlawful,” according to the court document.

In a recorded video statement, Uthmeier said the actions by Starbucks are ironically going against what the company wanted to accomplish.

“Starbucks made DEI more than a slogan. They turned it into a mandatory hiring and promotion system based upon race. The coffee empire set numerical racial targets for their workforce and they tied executive bonuses to those targets,” Uthmeier said.

“That is brazen discrimination and it is against the law. DEI can never be an excuse to violate someone’s civil rights. Every worker in our state deserves to be hired on merit, qualifications and character, not race. Florida law protects that principle and we will enforce it.”

The lawsuit is challenging the hiring practices at 934 Starbucks stores in Florida. That’s the third-most Starbucks locations in any state.

The lawsuit asks the court to implement an injunction to stop the hiring practices and seeks civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation of several Florida statutes, particularly the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992 that prohibits employers from hiring based on racial criteria and other stipulations. The suit claims that “reverse discrimination” against a nonminority group is still discrimination.

Uthmeier’s Office is encouraging anyone who worked at Starbucks and believes they were discriminated against to file an online complaint.