EEOC Sues Slim Chickens Franchisee for Race and Sex Harassment and Retaliation

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — TNT Chicken, Inc., operator of fried chicken fast food restaurants with the Slim Chickens brand, violated federal law when it subjected an employee at one of the company’s Sioux Falls locations to unlawful race and sex harassment and then retaliated against her for objecting to the harassment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

Such conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits harassment because of an employee’s sex or race. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. TNT Chicken, Inc d/b/a Slim Chickens, Case No. 4:26-cv-4132) in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, beginning in November 2023 one of the restaurant’s shift leads repeatedly harassed a new, black female employee through unwanted sexual comments, offensive comments about black women, racial slurs, and physical threats of violence. The employee reported the conduct to management, but the company failed to stop the harassment and retaliated against her including by reducing her hours. The employee was forced to resign because the environment was intolerable, the EEOC’s suit said.

“No employee should be subjected to physical threats of violence, racial slurs, or offensive sexual comments in the workplace,” said Catherine Eschbach, acting EEOC general counsel. “When workers report such conduct to managers, the law requires employers to act promptly to stop the harassing conduct and to ensure employees who report harassment are shielded from retaliation.”

For more information on sexual and racial harassment, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment and https://www.eeoc.gov/racecolor-discrimination. For more information on retaliation, see: https://www.eeoc.gov/retaliation.

The EEOC’s Chicago District Office has jurisdiction over Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota, with additional offices in Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.