Sadly, We Do Have a Trifecta Winner

The results are now in, and Wet Seal is indeed a trifecta winner: Illegal, Immoral, and Stupid.

What?

Back in July, the New York Times and other media outlets reported that Wet Seal, a retailer of "fast fashion" apparel for young women, was being sued by former employees because "the company had a high-level policy of firing and denying pay increases and promotions to African-American employees because they did not fit its 'brand image.'" (Original Times story, by Steven Greenhouse, here)

To be honest, I found it hard to believe that a nationwide retailer could be that, well, stupid. Racial discrimination is both immoral and illegal, and to have a policy in place like this seemed unlikely.

At least that's what I hoped. So I coupled my comments on Wet Seal with a report on some recent research that suggests that fast ethical decisions are worse than slow, thoughtful ones. Perhaps, I wrote, the problem was the Wet Seal was just reacting too fast to, for example, slumping sales at a particular store -- let's just fire the frontline staff and store manager, and maybe that will fix the problem. They just didn't think the situation through, right? (Original blog post, here)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has now found in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling in a "determination" that Wet Seal's managers had made it overtly clear that they wanted employees who had the "Armani look, were white, had blue eyes, thin and blond in order to be profitable." (as reported, again by Steven Greenhouse, in today's Times; full story, here)

The federal commission said that, prior to the forcing-out of one of the African-American women plaintiffs, "she had received high ratings in running the King of Prussia [PA] store, which was ranked No. 8 among Wet Seal's more than 500 stores. Her regional manager and district manager had said she had 'great energy' and 'strong ability' to hold other managers and subordinates accountable in fulfilling their responsibilities." These attributes, however, were apparently not enough for senior executives to overlook her race. The senior vice president for store operations had visited her store and others in the area and then sent an email back to headquarters that read: "African Americans dominate — huge issue." The African-American store manager was fired the following day (Wet Seal continues to insist that the store manager resigned; whatever the truth, I think we can all agree that the work environment was hostile.).

As I said, a trifecta.