A White Marsh Japanese restaurant and sushi bar will pay $80,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit claiming Hispanic women were harassed there.
Kobe Steak House agreed to pay the women after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit accusing workers of making unwelcome sexual advances toward several women, the federal agency said Tuesday.
Since June 2003, Marta Yolanda Elias Garcia, Francisca Elizabeth Carrillos Lopez and other Hispanic women were subjected to “unwelcome and highly offensive sexual advances, including groping, touching and constant taunts about their sex, race and nation origin,” according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore City.
Garcia and Lopez were fired in retaliation for opposing these illegal actions, the agency said.
The settlement also means Kobe Steak House, which has three locations in Maryland and Virginia, must implement “anti-discrimination policies” that include mandatory training sessions.
“Sex, race and national origin discrimination continues to be a widespread problem inworkplaces across the country,” said EEOC Regional Attorney Jacqueline McNair in a statement.
A spokesperson for Kobe Steak House was not immediately available for comment.
In fiscal 2007, the EEOC received 30,150 charges alleging race-based discrimination, accounting for 37 percent of the agency?s private-sector caseload, the agency said.
