Closed Case
Race Discrimination in Employment
Settled in 1990 for $3.6 million and Injunctive Relief

Sprenger + Lang settled this race discrimination class action against Pillsbury with a four-year Consent Decree providing extensive injunctive relief and cash payouts totaling $3.6 million. At the time, it was the largest race discrimination settlement or judgment in the State of Minnesota. The class consisted of all black current and former salaried employees of Pillsbury between 1984 and 1990. Of the total monetary settlement, the Consent Decree required Pillsbury to use $1.76 million to create a Cultural Diversity and Training Fund. The purpose of the fund was to create and operate a cultural diversity department, cultural diversity programs, cultural diversity training, and individual cultural diversity awards and to recruit, hire and support a newly created position of Training Director. Another $600,000 of the total was allocated to four separate funds to further the employment and career opportunities of minority employees at Pillsbury: the Career Development Fund, the Cash/Stipend Grant, the Dependent Tuition Scholarship Fund and the Training Fund. The Consent Decree also required Pillsbury to give three annual cultural diversity awards to employees worth a combined total of $75,000. The Consent Decree further established minority hiring and utilization goals for salaried employees. Finally, the settlement distributed monetary awards among current and terminated employees pursuant to a formula.