Medical Testing Supplier Settles EEOC Race Suit Over Hair Bias

American Screening has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a race discrimination lawsuit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Louisiana centering on an employee’s traditionally Black hairstyle, the agency said Thursday.

The drug and medical testing supply company allegedly directed a Black employee who had begun wearing her hair in its natural texture to start wearing the long, straight wig that she had been interviewed and hired wearing, according to the EEOC. She was fired, in a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, after she continued to wear her natural hair, and ...