National: Dec. 29, 2000
The Children’s Place, a Secaucus, N.J.-based retail children’s clothing chain that operates approximately 365 stores in 40 states, has reached a settlement in a discrimination lawsuit that the Massachusetts Attorney General said he was prepared to file; that potential suit arose out of claims that the chain discriminated against its African-American customers; those claims were allegedly confirmed by undercover “testers” sent into stores by the Attorney General’s office; as part of the consent-decree settlement the chain has agreed to institute anti-discrimination training in its 17 Massachusetts stores, donate $50,000 to a Boston organization that helps children and spend up to $100,000 for an outside consultant who will look into whether the company’s current policies might foster discrimination; the company has issued a statement denying the discrimination charges.
