New York Tire Company Faces Charges of Sexual Discrimination in Hiring

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit against Mavis Discount Tire, a supplier of tires and automotive parts and services based in Millwood, NY. The suit alleges that the company refused to employ females for numerous available positions, in contrast to some of the applicants being more than qualified.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, since at least 2008, only a single woman has been employed in certain positions at Mavis Discount Tire, out of nearly 800 employees. These positions include the company’s store and service center jobs such as tire installers, mechanics, assistant managers, managers, and similar work. The EECO further claimed that, between 2008 and 2010, there were around 1,300 persons hired, and none of the applicants chosen were female. Allegedly, Mavis had failed to maintain applications, which the EEOC notes is a distinctly separate violation of federal law. But even of the applications made available, women with reportedly superior credentials and experience were not hired while men with fewer qualifications found employment.

Mavis’ alleged conduct seems to denote a routine process of discrimination, which violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII has a specific section for “unlawful employment practices.” It’s considered unlawful to fail or refuse to hire, or engage in any discriminatory acts against, a person based on gender, as well as race, color, religion or national origin. Likewise, an employer cannot “limit, segregate or classify” workers or applicants based on such conditions and consequently deprive a person of employment or unfavorably affect employment.

The EEOC filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. An attempt to conciliate the matter with the potential for a pre-litigation settlement was apparently not successful. The suit is looking to recover past and future wages for the qualified female applicants rejected, instatement for the positions the women were denied, and injunctive relief (a court order that requires the company refrain from such practices in the future).

“The EEOC is uniquely positioned to challenge systematic hiring discrimination,” P. David Lopez, General Counsel of the EEOC, said in an EEOC press release. “Where necessary, we are prepared to use litigation to hold employers accountable for depriving qualified applicants of job opportunities, simply because of their sex.”

Anna M. Pohl, trial attorney in the New York District Office, added, “Women have been working in traditionally all-male fields like automotive services and sales for quite a while, but Mavis seems to be stuck in the past.” Another attorney working the case, Gillian L. Thomas, summarized the lawsuit by stating that “evidence of sex discrimination doesn’t get much starker than having just one woman employee out of eight hundred.”

Mavis Discount Tire additionally operates as Mavis Tire Supply Corporation and Mavis Tire NY and owns Cole Muffler, Inc. The company has approximately 110 facilities throughout the northeast. The EEOC’s New York District Office, in addition to New York, has jurisdiction over Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and portions of New Jersey.