A former Equinox employee has sued the company after claiming she was discriminated against because of her race and gender.
According to reports, Röbynn Europe filed a lawsuit and won $11.25 million in damages after the company was found liable for race and gender discrimination. Europe worked as a fitness manager at the East 92nd Street location and stated the work environment was not good.
Her lawsuit claims that the company, “failed to investigate repeated racist and sexually inappropriate behaviors at its 92nd Street location and that the fitness club used lateness to target and fire her in September 2019.”
After being hired in November 2018 and promoted to manager a month later, Europe was in charge of 15 fitness employees, including a male fitness manager, who refused to comply with the rules because she was in charge.
She claims that the unnamed employee would call her and other nonwhite employees out of their names and had plans to get them fired. Once she shared her concerns with the company, she claims that the company decided to fire her instead of handling the issue.
The jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, however, saw that the gym franchise was at fault. In a statement, her attorney Susan Crumiller said, “Equinox thought it could get away with its appalling behavior and a jury of New Yorkers said otherwise.”
Crumiller continued, “This is not just a victory for our client, but for all Black women who have suffered that noxious combination of racism and sexism that is too often tolerated in the workplace.”