Last week, a hospitality group was slammed with a racial discrimination lawsuit after a Black Detroit man alleged he was only accepted for a hotel position because he reapplied under a “white” name. In response, the company bit back with a serious rebuttal.
Daniel del Olmo, president of Sage Hospitality Group, told CNN the allegations Dwight Jackson made against Shinola Hotel were “baseless.” The allegations stem from a so-called experiment Jackson performed. His suit says he changed his name to a “Caucasian” sounding one — John Jebrowski -- and reapplied to a few positions at the hotel after not hearing back from his original submissions. To his surprise, he claims he got a response under his alias despite both resumes having nearly identical job experiences, per the lawsuit.
Jackson alleged in the lawsuit both the hotel and the hospitality group exercised racial discrimination in the job hiring process. However, Olmo told CNN the company has a spotless record of diverse hiring methods. Over 78 percent of new hires at Shinola identify as people of color and 66 percent of them identify as Black, he said.
Olmo also said of the four positions Jackson applied to, three of them were filled by Black candidates - two of which he applied to under his alias. In conclusion, Olmo claimed it wasn’t a race thing. And no, they didn’t just fill the positions amidst the bombshell lawsuit — Olmo said all of the positions were filled ahead of Jackson’s filing.
“While we cannot disclose further details as it relates to this specific matter, we want to assure you, our team members and our community, that discrimination of any kind will never be tolerated,” he said to CNN.
Meanwhile, Jackson asserted in his own CNN interview that he wasn’t trying to catch the company in a “gotcha” moment. The whole situation left him feeling quite “worthless.”
“I wasn’t experimenting or purposely trying to catch them. I was just looking for a job,” he said to CNN in an interview this weekend.