{"id":4158,"date":"2018-07-10T11:55:55","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T15:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/?p=4158"},"modified":"2019-09-16T07:04:10","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T07:04:10","slug":"starbucks-serves-up-disability-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/starbucks-serves-up-disability-discrimination\/","title":{"rendered":"Starbucks Serves Up Disability Discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA, PA\u2014The world\u2019s favorite\u2026 or at least the most popular coffee chain, Starbucks is back in the news for discriminating against its customers. Apparently, even after closing all of its U.S. stores on May 29, 2018, for racial bias training, after one of their employees in April called the police on two black men who were waiting in their store for a friend and had them arrested, needs to hold another session. This time, a Starbucks employee mocking a customer with a stutter.<\/p>\n

On June 27, 2018, a customer name Sam walked into a local Philadelphia Starbucks, which happened to be only a few miles away from where those arrests in April occurred, and an employee tastelessly joked about Sam\u2019s stutter when he took the ice coffee order. After, Sam wrote an email to Starbucks\u2019 customer service about the discrimination he faced at that location. However, in response, Starbucks only sent him a standard email and a $5 gift card.<\/p>\n

Because of the lack of effort on Starbuck\u2019s part, on July 1, 2018, Tan Lekwijit shared a Facebook post on Starbucks\u2019 Facebook page, as well as his own page, that included a picture of a Starbucks cup with the name \u201cSSSam\u201d typed on it. Lekwijit\u2019s post explained in the caption:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMy friend Sam, who is a stutterer, stuttered on his name when ordering a coffee at Starbucks. The barista said, \u2018Okay, S<\/strong>-s-s-sam.\u2019 When he received his coffee, he was shocked to see that his name on the cup was written as \u2018SSSAM\u2019, which was disrespectful.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lekwijit also wrote on Facebook:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI am writing this not because I want to get anybody into trouble, but because I want to raise awareness among the employees. There are many people with speech disorders who are in a worse position than my friend\u2019s and struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence\u2026 Getting this kind of treatment from people, especially service employees, only scars them \u2014 and I beg Starbucks employees to have this in mind.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Starbucks<\/p>\n

On Thursday, July 5, in response to learning about the discrimination against a customer\u2019s disability, the coffee chain issues the following response saying, \u201cThere is no tolerance for this type of behavior. We\u2019ve taken immediate corrective action and have apologized to the customer. We want our stores to serve as a welcoming place for everyone who visits and strive to ensure our partners provide a positive experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, Starbucks noted that the employee in question was fired. Yet, the damage had already been done to the company who is still recovering from its earlier April PR nightmare. After Lekwijit\u2019s post caught fire on social media, Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges acknowledged that company\u2019s initial response to Sam\u2019s complaint was lacklustre, stating, \u201cGiving a $5 gift card is certainly not the way we want to handle these things \u2026 we obviously want everyone to walk into our stores and have a great experience and that wasn\u2019t reflective of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, Borges announced plans for Starbucks to focus upcoming training sessions on how to treat customers in a way that makes them want to return to Starbucks. \u201cWhen it comes to anyone that walks into our stores, training or no training, we want them to feel welcome… And we want to have partners that understand the value of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Americans with Disabilities Act (\u201cADA\u201d) protects individuals with disabilities and defines \u201cMajor Life Activities\u201d to include, but not be limited to: \u201ccaring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, under ADA\u2014as well as state and local discrimination laws\u2014 stuttering can be a type of disability because a speech impediment and stammer impact an individual\u2019s major life activity, such as the areas of \u201cspeaking\u201d and \u201ccommunication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Starbucks employees must respect customers and treat individuals like Sam with respect, so must employers. If your employer has discriminated against you because of a disability or teased you about your disability, such conduct may be unlawful. The New York City discrimination attorneys at the Derek Smith Law Group, PLLC have years of experience litigating claims of disability discrimination<\/a>, as well as other forms of discrimination like sexual harassment. Working together with our Philadelphia and Miami discrimination attorneys, the Derek Smith Law Group has received millions of dollars on behalf of our clients who are the victims of discrimination or survivors of sexual harassment. If you feel you have been subject to unlawful discrimination at work, please give our talented attorneys a call, toll-free at 1-877-469-5297, for your free consultation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA, PA\u2014The world\u2019s favorite\u2026 or at least the most popular coffee chain, Starbucks is back in the news for discriminating against its customers. Apparently, even after closing all of its U.S. stores on May 29, 2018, for racial bias training, after one of their employees in April called the police on two black men who … Continue reading “Starbucks Serves Up Disability Discrimination”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1806,1721],"tags":[1565,275,1804,132,1805,1807,1084,254,1808,1809,1810,1811,1812,1813,1814,1815],"class_list":["post-4158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disability-discrimination","category-discrimination-law","tag-metoo","tag-americans-with-disabilities-act","tag-customer","tag-discrimination","tag-disability-discrimination","tag-lekwijit","tag-miami","tag-race-discrimination","tag-racial-bias-training","tag-sam-starbucks","tag-speech-impediment","tag-stammer","tag-starbucks","tag-starbucks-employees","tag-stutter","tag-stuttering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}