Exotic dancer says strip clubs turned away Black dancers. Supreme Court won't get involved.
WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on June 2 declined to take up a Black adult entertainer's attempt to sue several Houston-area strip clubs for alleged racial discrimination.
Chanel Nicholson has accused the clubs of limiting the number of Black dancers on stage at one time. The lower courts dismissed her class action lawsuit saying she waited too long to bring her challenge.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that decision was "patently erroneous" and the Supreme Court should have intervened. But only one other justice, Sonia Sotomayor, agreed.
More: Two men fought for jobs in a river-town mill. 50 years later, the nation is still divided.
There's a four-year statute of limitations for claims brought under the federal law guaranteeing racial equality in contractual relationships and a federal district judge said that clock started in 2014 when Nicholson first began working at the clubs. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed that decision.
Nicholson argues the clock reset every time she was turned away from the stage. In November of 2017, for example, she said she was barred from performing at one club after being told there were 'too many Black girls' working already. She filed her initial suit in 2021 after she said she was again discriminated against.
Attorneys for the strip clubs say the statute of limitations applies unless the charge is a hostile work environment, which was not Nicholson's initial claim.
Nicholson initially represented herself when filing her appeal but now has attorneys who say the lower courts are divided over whether the statute of limitations can also be waived when someone alleges a pattern of discrimination.
Those are among the most important civil rights claims, her attorneys argue. And there should be no artificial cut off, they told the court, when the discriminatory act 'is ongoing and the reason for it is still visible in the mirror.'
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court rejects exotic dancer's racial discrimination case
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