JACKSON, ma’am. — The Mississippi Senate discriminated against a black attorney by paying her about half of what her white colleagues paid for the same work, the U.S. Justice Department says in a lawsuit it filed Friday.
“Discriminatory employment practices, such as paying a Black worker less than his white colleagues for the same work, are not only unfair, but unlawful,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Kristie Metcalfe worked as a staff attorney for the Mississippi Senate Legislative Services Office from December 2011 to November 2019. Lawyers for the nonpartisan office write bills and handle other legal questions for the 52 senators. Many of them stay on the job for decades.
The Senate office employed exclusively white attorneys for at least 34 years before Metcalfe was hired, and she was the only black attorney on staff during her time there, the lawsuit said.
Metcalfe’s starting salary was $55,000, while other Senate staff attorneys received $95,550 to $121,800, according to the lawsuit. The other attorneys received raises about a month after Metcalfe was hired, bringing their salaries to between $114,000 and $136,416. Metcalfe didn’t get a raise at the time.
The current governor, Republican Tate Reeves, presided over the Senate as lieutenant governor from January 2012 to January 2020 – most of the time Metcalfe worked for the Senate.
The Associated Press reached out Friday for comment on Reeves’ lawsuit and current Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who is also a Republican.
“We do not comment on pending litigation,” said current Senate Secretary Amanda Frisha White, who works for Hosemann.
Metcalfe’s salary remained $40,000 to $60,000 less than her lowest-paid white colleague during her years on the job, the lawsuit said. It also said the Senate hired another attorney, a white man, in December 2018 and set his salary at $101,500, which was $24,335 more than Metcalfe was paid at the time.
Metcalfe and the new attorney both had eight years of experience practicing law, although the new attorney had not previously worked in the Legislature. They were given the same type of Senate work, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit said Metcalfe complained about the pay disparity with the then-senator. Terry Burton, a Republican. As president pro tempore, Burton chaired the Rules Committee, which sets staff salaries. He denied Metcalfe’s request to equalize her salary with that of her new colleague, the lawsuit said. About eleven months later she resigned.