That white manager had left the company following the previous racial discrimination lawsuit in 2019, but later returned believing that the company was improving its culture. The complaint even alleges that another white manager of the same Founders Brewing Detroit taproom resigned at the same time as Dillard, citing the racial discrimination against her. When a white employee later complained about the same behavior from the same worker, however, the employee was terminated. Likewise, the complaint also details Dillard’s allegations of sexual harassment from a fellow worker, who was not reprimanded or fired when she complained about the behavior. She alleges that she was not given the same areas of responsibility in her work as white employees, and was unable to advance her position in the same way that they could. District Court Eastern District by a former employee named Naeemah Dillard, who worked at the Detroit taproom from June 2021 until April 2023, “when the work environment became so objectively racially hostile that she had no choice to resign.” She alleges a laundry list of discriminatory practices, saying that she was promoted to a “part time” management position unlike white coworkers, which included server shift work for which she wasn’t paid as a manager. The new racial discrimination complaint was brought in Detroit’s U.S. Is it possible that perhaps the rotten rotten racial reputation of Founders might have played a role in that “foot traffic,” in a city with a population that is more than three-fourths Black? Suffice to say, it’s impossible to buy the official line from Founders Brewing, which states that the Detroit location permanently closed its doors–on a Monday afternoon–because “our Detroit location has not been immune to the struggle to regain foot traffic after temporary COVID closures that have impacted restaurants and bars across the nation.” The company says it is “working diligently to find new positions within the company for employees impacted by this closure,” none of whom apparently received any warning that the taproom would be shutting down. Now in 2023 we’re right back where we began, as Founders has abruptly closed its Detroit taproom, mere hours after another former employee filed a new racial discrimination complaint against the company. ![]() that kept it as a member of our list of the 50 best breweries of the 2010s, because by the point when we were assembling that list in 2019, the company’s reputation was already hanging by a thread following a high-profile racial discrimination lawsuit and subsequent botched attempt at hiring a diversity and inclusion director. In retrospect, it was only our past fondness and reverence for Founders Brewing Co. It’s sad, as a craft beer fan and industry observer, to see a company you once admired slowly but surely drag itself down into the mud with a reputation for cutthroat business practices and racial discrimination.
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