Discrimination Suit Brought Against Beverly Hills Skincare Company Owner Sonya Dakar
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- A Beverly Hills skincare company is being sued for alleged racial, religious and sexual orientation discrimination.
Two former employees of business owner Sonya Dakar brought the suit on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Dakar and her companies, Global Green World LLC and Sonya D. International Inc.
The employees said they resigned from the company due to systemic workplace discrimination, including sexual orientation harassment and discrimination, retaliation, failure to take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation, negligent hiring retention and supervision and various state Labor Code violations.
Dakar's business is located in the 9900 block of Santa Monica Boulevard and provides skin care services to celebrities and other clients.
The two plaintiffs -- one who worked as a front desk concierge and the other in a marketing role -- said Dakar would openly make discriminatory comments against people who are African-American, Latinx and Muslim.
The suit said Dakar would make the comments about "employees, job applicants and customers" and that she allegedly repeatedly referred to Latinx individuals as "chihuahuas," "gonzalezes" and "rodriguezes."
According to court documents, Dakar is accused of saying she would not interview or hire Black and Latinx applicants and questioned people during interviews about their religious, ethnic and national origin backgrounds.
One of the plaintiffs left the company in December 2018 and the other resigned three months later, according to their complaint, which also alleges that Dakar failed to pay them all wages and other amounts they were owed.
A representative for Dakar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
