Macy’s Pays $650,000 To Settle Accusations Of Racial Profiling

Macy's famous store on Herald Square in Manhattan (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Macy’s famous store on Herald Square in Manhattan (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Last year, Macy’s came under fire amid reports that minority customers were unjustly profiled by loss prevention agents at its flagship store on Herald Square in Manhattan. The complaints were serious enough that New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation into Macy’s loss prevention practices. Well, there’s a happy ending to this story. On Tuesday, Macy’s agreed to pay $650,000 in fines, penalties, and investigation costs as part of a broader settlement with Schneiderman’s office.

Racial profiling at Macy’s first came to public attention back in October, when actor Rob Brown claimed that three months earlier, he bought a $1,350 watch and some fashion sunglasses at the Herald Square store. A Macy’s employee accused him of credit card fraud, prompting undercover officers to handcuff him and put him in a cell at the store for an hour. When they realized their mistake, they released Brown and even offered to give him a police escort to his next destination. It wasn’t nearly enough to keep Brown from filing a federal class-action lawsuit against Macy’s and the New York Police Department for racial discrimination. Brown’s attorney argued that his client had been detained solely because he was black, and an ordinary black man of Brown’s age would have likely been facing criminal charges. Brown settled the suit in May, terms were not disclosed.

What we didn’t know is that Schneiderman actually began investigating Macy’s in February 2013 amid several complaints from minority customers. According to a release from Schneiderman’s office announcing the settlement, his office had received “close to two dozen complaints” from minority customers who claimed they had been questioned and detained by loss-prevention agents when they had done nothing wrong. Among them were a woman who rode an escalator with merchandise draped over her arm, and a man who had simply come into make an exchange.

 
The earliest complaints dated as far back as 2007. At that time, Macy’s was still operating under a sweeping consent decree it had entered into with former attorney general Eliot Spitzer in 2005 concerning racial profiling. Indeed, many of the concerns covered in Tuesday’s settlement are identical to the ones raised in 2005. Some new concerns were raised as well. Among them, customers with limited English skills were denied access to interpreters while being questioned and forced to sign trespassing notices in English. Investigators also interviewed several former Macy’s sales associates who claimed loss prevention agents subjected minority customers to closer and more frequent surveillance than they did with white customers. Additionally, the investigation found that minority customers were detained at “significantly higher rates relative to whites.”

As part of the settlement, Macy’s must name an independent expert who will monitor efforts to prevent racial profiling and report to Schneiderman for the next three years. It will also improve its record-keeping on all interactions between loss prevention agents and customers and change the way it trains its employees on how to handle suspected cases of shoplifiting. While the agreement technically only applies to Macy’s 42 stores in New York state, its impact will be felt nationally as well. Indeed, the settlement calls for Macy’s to post a “Customers’ Bill of Rights” on its corporate Website which states profiling could potentially be a firing offense. This past holiday season, Macy’s had joined several other major chains in posting a similar document.

This is the second time in two weeks that Schneiderman has wrung a settlement from a major New York City department store for racial profiling. You may recall that Barneys New York, based an 11-minute subway ride north of Macy’s Herald Square, coughed up $500,000 to settle profiling allegations. While both settlements amount to rounding errors for both Macy’s and Barneys, the message is obvious–not only is racial profiling unacceptable, but any chain that engages in it will have to pay dearly for it, both literally and figuratively.

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Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.