Starbucks has agreed to pay $1 million as part of a voluntary resolution of a lawsuit brought by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier that alleged the company maintained illegal race-based hiring and advancement policies, Uthmeier’s office announced Thursday.
Florida filed the lawsuit late last year, alleging that Starbucks “excluded or disfavored nonminorities” in several employment practices and programs.
Among the allegations were that the coffee chain maintained racial quotas for hiring, paid different wages to employees based on race, tied executive pay to participation in race-based mentorship programs and excluded “people of disfavored races” from networking and mentorship opportunities.
Florida specifically cited public documents such as a 2020 report in which Starbucks said it would seek to hire people of color in 40% of its retail and distribution center jobs as well as 30% of corporate jobs. The state also noted a 2024 regulatory filing in which Starbucks said that 7.5% of an executive’s pay during the ongoing fiscal year would be based on service as a mentor of mentees who identified as black, indigenous or people of color.
On Thursday, Uthmeier said the company had agreed to comply with Florida’s Civil Rights Act. which prohibits the alleged conduct, and added that Starbucks would not participate in organizations that required it to increase the racial diversity of its board. The company’s chief legal officer will submit annual certifications of continued compliance over a four-year period.
As part of a statement accompanying the attorney general’s announcement, Pilar Ramos, executive VP and chief legal officer at Starbucks, said that the company did not admit wrongdoing.
“We will continue to focus on offering great jobs and career opportunities to our partners who wear the green apron, while making a positive impact on the communities we serve in Florida and around the world,” Ramos said.
Uthmeier’s enforcement action against Starbucks mirrored similar activity at the federal level, where the Trump administration has been engaged in a multiyear campaign against workplace DEI. Agencies including the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have issued guidance outlining how DEI programs may be discriminatory.
Allegations of DEI-based discrimination have led to high-dollar payouts. Last week, DOJ announced a $25 million settlement with Accenture after the agency claimed the firm took race and sex into account for hiring and promotions, favoring candidates who advanced its demographic goals. DOJ inked a similar $21.5 million agreement with Deloitte over alleged discrimination in hiring, promotion and staffing decisions in August.
EEOC, meanwhile, has launched multiple investigations of employers facing such allegations. The commission is likely to succeed in pressuring employers to comply with subpoenas for information related to their DEI programs, attorneys previously told HR Dive, and that prediction has been borne out so far in court rulings. One such decision came in July, when a federal judge ordered Northwestern Mutual to comply with EEOC’s probe of its DEI policies.
