Discrimination Claims Outside Employment Context Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Discrimination Claims Outside Employment Context

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I had a very interesting case recently where I represented an organization called Patrick’s Cabaret. Patrick’s Cabaret is a theatrical organization whose focus is the LGBTQ community. Well a couple of years ago they applied for a grant from a nonprofit foundation. They didn’t get it. The following year they were going to apply again and they decided that they were going to try to get information from that organization why they didn’t get approved the first time so they could do a better job the second time. And unbelievable they got a voicemail message back from the person, the manager of the funds saying we have a very conservative board here and they still haven’t decided that they’re willing to fund LGBTQ organizations.

Well, unfortunately, for them you can’t make that kind of discriminatory decision. So I actually represented Patrick’s Cabaret in a Minnesota human rights act claim against the foundation. We were ready, willing, and able to sue that thing out. Ultimately, we did settle that and here’s the key to that settlement it is not confidential. And as you might expect, most defendants require confidentiality if they’re going to settle something but Patrick’s Cabaret was much more interested in letting the funding community know that it’s not okay to discriminate based on sexual orientation and so their main requirement was we’re willing to settle but only if it’s a publicly available settlement. And it was and we got actually quite a lot of nice coverage through The Star Tribune and other publications.

Minneapolis, MN investor advocacy attorney F. Chet Taylor talks about his experience with discrimination claims outside of the employment context.

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