The Effect of an Apology

Denny's, in many ways did apologize. Mainly it apologized in actions that showed respect to minority groups and in a way took on a form of affirmative action. They boosted the number of minority managers and increased the number of minority franchise owners. Before the big discrimination cases there was only on African-American franchise owner, and this number was quickly boosted. In this case an apology, or certainly apologetic actions, are certainly helpful and necessary. The question of who makes the apology poses an interesting problem. As Denny's has many different franchise owners, it is somewhat difficult to control all of the employees or know which franchise dropped the ball. This is why Jerry Richardson, one of the main components that got Denny's to become such a succcessful business, took it upon himself to write a letter to the customers, make a contract for the employees, and ensure that this discrimination crisis died down.

His actions were very effective and now Denny's is seen in a more more positive light. Many people believe that Denny's has now buried its old image of being racist and has come to be one of the better companies on the basis of equality and fairness.

The Denny's Controversy

In 1994 Denny's paid $54 million dollars to settle law suits about discrimination. Two years earlier, Denny's had begun to face a few problems with racism in one of its California locations. Jerry Richardson, the CEO of Flagstar (Denny's operating company), began to worry and instantly began to talk to NAACP about hiring more minorities and keeping discrimination away from his restaurants. However, immediately after implementing the new rules, more discrimination cases sprung up. These led to the $54 million dollar settlement. Richardson then decided to take more action which eventually led to a suprising shift in reputation as Denny's is now seen as a positive and accepting company of minorities.



This is a controversial topic becaus at the time there were so many different reports of incidents where racism had occured and it was difficult to tell who was to blame. Because Denny's is made up of franchise owners, who is at fault? Is it fair to blame the entire company when really it is only a handful of people at few locations that are to blame? Perhaps it was just one employee that was racist, or perhaps the customers were being over sensative after hearing about other cases and believed they could get money out of it.