DOJ files lawsuit against Mississippi State Senate for severely underpaying Black staffer

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Mississippi State Senate, alleging a former Black staff attorney was paid about half the salary of her white colleagues during her eight-year tenure.

Kristie Metcalfe – the first attorney of color the state Senate had hired in more than three decades – performed the same legislative duties as her colleagues but was consistently paid $40,000 to $60,000 less than the lowest-salaried white attorney, according to the federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Prosecutors allege the state Senate violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal statute that prohibits racial discrimination in compensation and other forms of employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin or religion.

“Discriminatory employment practices, like paying a Black employee less than their white colleagues for the same work, are not only unfair, they are unlawful,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This lawsuit makes clear that race-based pay discrimination will not be tolerated in our economy.”

Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who serves as president of the state Senate, did not immediately return USA TODAY’s request for comment on the lawsuit Friday.

Lawsuit alleges years of persistent pay discrimination

The Mississippi State Senate hired Metcalfe in December 2011 as a full-time staff attorney in its Legislative Services Office, which drafts bills and provides other legal services for members of the Senate.

Prosecutors said Metcalfe’s starting salary of $55,000 was the lowest since 1996 when two attorneys were paid $54,500 – equivalent to about $78,100 in 2011. The other full-time attorneys and office director were paid between $95,550 and $121,800 at the time.

For at least 34 years prior to Metcalfe’s hire, the Senate only employed white attorneys, the complaint said, and for the entire time that Metcalfe worked there, she was the only attorney of color.

One month after Metcalfe joined the team, the state Senate awarded all of her colleagues the largest raises since their hires, court filings said, further widening the pay gap. Two staffers received whopping pay bumps of $18,450 – which the complaint noted was about three times the raise awarded for a colleague's promotion to an office director position.

In December 2018, the state Senate hired a white man for the same position Metcalfe held with a starting salary of $101,500, according to the lawsuit. The employee had less experience than Metcalfe, prosecutors said, yet his initial salary was roughly $24,000 higher than Metcalfe’s pay at that time, seven years after she was hired.

Soon after that employee was hired, Metcalfe met with then-state Senator Terry Burton and three other Senate officials to raise concerns about the pay disparity and request her salary match the new attorney's pay. Burton denied her request, according to prosecutors, and she resigned in November 2019.

Metcalfe filed a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May 2019, alleging the state Senate discriminated against her because she was Black, the lawsuit said. The commission found reasonable cause to believe that she had faced race-based discrimination, tried to resolve the issue and subsequently referred the charge to the Justice Department.

Prosecutors are requesting a trial by jury. The Justice Department is seeking back pay and compensatory damages for Metcalfe, along with “injunctive and other appropriate relief.” Prosecutors are also asking the court to order the Mississippi State Senate to implement policies, practices and procedures to prevent race discrimination in the workplace against employees protected under Title VII.

Pay disparities for Black workers persist

People of color and women have long faced wage disparities, and research shows the gap persists decades after the right to equal pay was codified into federal law.

A 2023 study by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on financial inequalities, found the racial wage gap for Black workers has stayed about the same since the 1970s. The average Black worker in the U.S. is paid 23% less than a white worker, compared to 22% less in 1973. The study also notes the average white family has eight times as much wealth as a Black family.

Wage disparities for women have shrunk since the 43% average pay reduction compared to men in 1973. However, the gap is wider for women of color, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2022, the wage gap in relation to white men stood at a 20% pay cut for white women, 31% for Black women and 43% for Hispanic women.