The Children’s Place, a clothing retail chain that has 365 stores in 40 states, settled today in a racial discrimination case brought by a former employee who complained that her supervisors instructed her to treat black customers with suspicion. Amanda Berube, a white employee of the Children’s Place, told the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (CAD) and the state attorney general that supervisors told her to follow black customers around the store as they browsed in order to “prevent threat.” Berube was also instructed not to invite black customers to apply for store credit cards or to inform them about sales. Her earlier complaints to the district manager brought no response. The MA CAD sent undercover “testers” to the store, confirming racial discrimination in how black customers were treated by store employees. The chain, under a consent decree that allowed them to avoid a lawsuit, must take 22 corrective steps, including bringing in costly independent consultants to review the store’s policies and eliminate discriminatory practices.
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