THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 3, 1995 TAG: 9511030496
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSAN LANGENHENNIG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Circuit City Stores Inc. will fight two lawsuits alleging that discriminatory policies keep black employees out of management and require store managers to ``watch the mix'' of blacks and whites hired.
The Richmond-based company released a statement late Wednesday in response to the two lawsuits filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Maryland by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
The lawsuits allege that current and former black employees were deliberately passed over for promotions, and that store managers were told not to have more blacks working in the stores than the number of black patrons who shop there, said Joseph Sellers, director of employment litigation for the committee.
``Each of our black plaintiffs were routinely and regularly recognized as having high levels of sales, but were still regularly passed over for promotions and often had to train white employees for the jobs,'' Sellers said Wednesday.
``We are alleging intentional discrimination . . . which we believe was orchestrated by senior managers within this company.''
The company statement said ``it is Circuit City's policy to base all hiring, transfer and promotion decisions on ability and performance.''
One of the lawsuits was filed on behalf of eight current and former retail employees from stores in the Washington metropolitan area. The other is a class-action lawsuit that alleges discrimination against at least 10 current and former employees at the corporate headquarters in Richmond.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT by CNB