Other LanguagesSEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced a Sunnyside mushroom farm will pay $3.4 million to resolve a lawsuit asserting unfair, deceptive and discriminatory actions against female farmworkers and Washington-based workers.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that a Thurston County Superior Court judge rejected an attempt by PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company and subsidiaries of the Progressive Corporation to stop his office’s investigation of potential race discrimination against Washington drivers. The companies both use consumer credit histories — or “credit-based insurance scores” derived from a consumer’s credit history — to decide whether to sell, and at what price to sell, their auto insurance products, despite evidence that this practice disproportionately harms people of color.
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that a federal judge dismissed Seattle Pacific University’s attempt to stop his office’s investigation into potential illegal discrimination by the university’s administration.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today filed a civil rights lawsuit against Ostrom Mushroom Farms in Sunnyside for discriminating against U.S. residents and women, and retaliating against workers who spoke out. Ostrom abused the H-2A system by systematically firing its majority-female, Washington mushroom pickers and replacing them with H-2A foreign agricultural workers who were mostly male. Foreign H-2A workers have fewer rights than U.S.-based workers.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson released a statement confirming that his office is investigating potential illegal discrimination by Seattle Pacific University’s administration. The statement follows the University’s lawsuit seeking to block the investigation.
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that Alpha Omicron Pi, a national sorority, must refund or waive the housing fees it unlawfully charged dozens of University of Washington students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sorority charged thousands of dollars in housing fees in 2020 and 2021, even though COVID-19 prevented the students from accessing sorority housing — a violation of Gov. Jay Inslee’s emergency eviction moratorium.
SEATTLE — The Attorney General’s Office will appear before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today to ask its judges to uphold Washington’s law protecting children under 18 from being subjected to “conversion therapy” — a discredited and harmful practice that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
WENATCHEE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a civil rights lawsuit today against a Wenatchee veterans nonprofit and its founder and CEO regarding discrimination and sexual harassment. The nonprofit and CEO discriminated against and harassed at least 12 women who worked at or visited the nonprofit’s two thrift stores, the Veterans Warehouse Thrift Store in Wenatchee, and the Veterans Thrift Store in Kennewick.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that the claims process is now open as a result of his successful civil rights case against Greyhound Lines Inc. Greyhound passengers detained, arrested or deported after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents approached them, or boarded their Greyhound bus, at the Spokane Intermodal Center are eligible for a share of $2.2 million Greyhound paid to resolve Ferguson’s lawsuit. Claims are due by March 31, 2022.
OLYMPIA — In a victory for Washington, a federal jury determined that The GEO Group Inc. (GEO), the for-profit operator of the Northwest ICE Processing Center, violates Washington’s minimum wage laws by paying detainee workers only $1 per day. The verdict concludes the first phase of a retrial in Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit against GEO.