This story seems to be much richer than the headline suggests!
I am so glad I rarely ever drink this expensive Starbucks coffee!
This former CEO Kevin Johnson apparently was such a fool!
"... On Monday, a federal jury awarded Shannon Phillips a whopping $25 million in punitive damages and an additional $600,000 in compensatory damages after members unanimously agreed that Starbucks had fired her on racial grounds. "I was terminated because I am white," Phillips said in court documents filed in 2019. "If I was black, I would not have been terminated. I was terminated because I complained of and objected to race discrimination." ...
The circumstances surrounding Phillips' termination began five years ago, when two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were infamously arrested at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia after employees told them they could not use the store restrooms unless they first made a purchase. The men refused to leave or purchase anything, insisting that they were still waiting on a third party. Because of their intransigence that day, an employee eventually called the cops, and the two were arrested, though they were never charged with any crime.
Starbucks executives appeared to panic in the immediate fallout over the men's arrest, which made national news. Kevin Johnson, who was CEO at the time, rushed to Philadelphia to apologize to the men. He also ordered 8,000 Starbucks stores to close for an afternoon so that nearly 175,000 company employees could undergo racial sensitivity training. ..."
White former Starbucks regional manager awarded $25M after jury determines she was fired because of her race - TheBlaze
