The Justice Department (DOJ) filed a lawsuit Friday against the Mississippi State Senate, alleging that it discriminated against a Black former staff attorney in the Legislative Services Office (LSO) by paying her significantly less than her white colleagues.
According to the department, the Senate paid Kristie Metcalfe, the attorney in question, approximately half the salary of her white peers in the LSO.
“Discriminatory employment practices, like paying a Black employee less than their white colleagues for the same work, are not only unfair, they are unlawful,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.
“The Black employee at issue in this lawsuit was paid about half the salary of her white colleagues in violation of federal law.”
The complaint claims that the pay disparity began when Metcalfe was hired in 2011, with a starting salary notably lower than any LSO attorney in over three decades.
Shortly after her hiring, all other LSO attorneys, who were white, received substantial raises, widening the pay gap further.