Read Hayes, senior consultant for Loss Prevention Solutions Inc., a consulting firm based in Winter Park, Florida, did a national survey in 1997 that found that in more than 100,000 shoplifting incidents across the country, 46.3 percent of shoplifters were white and 32.7 percent were African-American. Dillard's itself says that most of its theft is internal.
So then how does Dillard's explain the demographic data from Jefferson County, Texas? In 2001 the county had an estimated population of 249,640, of which 33.7 percent were African-American. In 299 trespass warnings issued from 1998 to 2002 at the Beaumont Dillard's, 250, or 83.6 percent, went to African-Americans. Trespass warnings are issued by Dillard's to tell people they are no longer wanted in its stores and will be prosecuted if they return.
Dillard's family members own 99 percent of the Class B voting stock and elect two-thirds of the company's directors, according to a December Hoovers Online report. In March, conservative African-American and former U.S. congressman J.C. Watts became the second minority member of Dillard's 12-person board.
Dillard's stock price has sunk in recent years. Experts said that has nothing to do with allegations of retail racism. Analysts said its disinclination to put its merchandise on sale has hurt it, as well as not doing much to change the way it presents its stores, considered somewhat dull by some customers. Although its shares traded above $50 in the early '90s, in December it was trading at $15.75 on the New York Stock Exchange.
A 1999 Wall Street Journal article said there was "a long history of strife between the company and minority groups." It also has a long history of not wanting to talk with the press. Corporate spokeswoman Julie Bull initially said she would respond to questions faxed to her by the Press. After having those questions for a week, Bull said she had turned them over to Dillard's legal department. The legal department did not answer the questions either, although an independent publicist, Skip Rutherford, provided a Dillard's response more than two weeks after the questions were first posed to Dillard's. The responses did not address any questions involving litigation. (see "Head Ways").
In a 1984 lawsuit, Archie Crittenden, who'd been vice president for personnel when he was fired in 1983, said Dillard's discriminated against blacks in its hiring policies. Crittenden said all personnel policies were signed off on by William Dillard Sr. and Ray Kemp, vice chairman. Crittenden said he heard from Dillard and Kemp on several occasions that he "was not to hire any more blacks."
According to Crittenden, in a meeting in 1982, discussion turned to the presence of African-Americans in the corporate offices. It was discussed and approved that a black employee should be moved back further in the department so Dillard Sr. wouldn't see her when he entered the building. Crittenden lost his lawsuit but did some damage to Dillard's reputation.
In July 2001, Dillard's agreed to pay $5.6 million to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed by black employees. About 1,000 current and former employees from Kansas and Missouri were covered in the action.
The NAACP regional office in St. Louis in 1985 led a "selective buying campaign" against Dillard's. One of the concerns was that Dillard's catalogs featured only white models.
In 1998, after complaints in Kansas City, Missouri, general counsel Paul Schroeder wrote a letter on behalf of Dillard's pledging its commitment to good race relations with its customers and employees. In it, he said Dillard's would emphasize its prohibition against targeting minority shoppers. A committee was formed of Dillard's personnel and community representatives to chart its progress in establishing better relations, but nothing much ever came of it. The NAACP has expelled Dillard's from its Fair Share program and in 2003 once again gave it an F for its diversity efforts.
Dillard's is dogged in fighting lawsuits. Paula Hampton, an African-American human resources manager at Babies "R" Us won a $1.2 million jury award against Dillard's. The store had kept her from claiming a cologne sample and she was detained by a guard for suspected shoplifting in Overland Park, Kansas. Dillard's took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it in February 2002.
Sometimes it is Dillard's own employees who are most critical of its operations. Debra L. Brown was an area sales manager at the Bonita Lakes Mall in Meridian, Mississippi, until she was fired on January 31, 2001, for allegedly trying to steal a pair of $16.99 capri pants. Brown says she actually was terminated in retaliation for her opposition to Dillard's "policies of harassing minority customers of the store through the use of excessive security practices."
