EEOC: Barber school said having two pregnant workers wasn’t in its ‘best interest’

Posted by News Room 11 September 2024

Dive Brief:

  • Dallas Barber and Stylist College, Inc., violated federal civil rights law when it allegedly refused to hire a candidate for a hair braider position because she was pregnant, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a lawsuit filed Sept. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. 
  • The candidate received satisfactory results after completing a skills test for the position but was told the school already had a pregnant employee and didn’t want to deal with another’s “condition,” according to the lawsuit (EEOC v. Dallas Barber and Stylist College, Inc.). 
  • “It’s not in our best interest to have two pregnant ladies in our school now,” the owner of Dallas Barber and Stylist College allegedly told the candidate, according to court documents. The college could not immediately be reached for comment.

Dive Insight:

Refusing to hire someone based on pregnancy is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination because of sex, per EEOC. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 amended Title VII to include pregnancy.

“The law requires that employers provide women an equal opportunity to enter the workforce irrespective of their pregnancy status,” EEOC Birmingham District Director Bradley Anderson said in a statement. 

EEOC first tried to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process before filing the lawsuit, the agency said. 

EEOC regularly enforces laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex and other protected characteristics, including pregnancy. 

In December 2023, for example, Frontier Airlines agreed to a settlement with EEOC and five pilots over allegations the airline forced pregnant and lactating pilots to take unpaid leave, didn’t offer reasonable accommodations and kept them from pumping at work. 

And in May 2023, EEOC alleged that a Texas pub fired a pregnant bartender because it didn’t think she would be safe working there and thought her pregnancy made her “too much of a liability.”