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.
This is an interesting topic. I did not grow up around here, so I've never really heard about it. You mention that the NAACP was involved. Were African Americans the main group targeted or did the discrimination affect multiple races?
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