In a new lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice accused the Mississippi state Senate of severely underpaying a Black staff attorney for years.
Federal officials allege that the state Senate discriminated against former staff attorney Kristie Metcalf and paid her a much lower salary than her white colleagues during her eight years working in the Senate’s Legislative Services Office (LSO), a nonpartisan office that provides legal services for Senate members.
According to the complaint, Metcalfe was the LSO’s only Black attorney from 2011 to 2019 and was also the first attorney of color the office hired in at least 34 years.
When the LSO brought her on, they initially paid her $55,000, the lowest offered salary since 1996 and “significantly lower” than what the Senate paid “all of its white incumbent attorneys at that time,” the suit states.
According to the complaint, the Senate consistently paid Metcalfe about $40,000 to $60,000 less than the lowest-salaried white attorney during her eight years with the LSO.
The DOJ named five white staff attorneys who were all paid between $95,000 and $122,000 at the time Metcalfe was hired. And despite completing the same level and amount of work as her white colleagues, Metcalfe’s starting salary was “less than 60%” of their salaries, federal attorneys allege.
Additionally, just one month after Metcalfe was employed, the Senate granted those white attorneys “the largest raises of their careers,” the suit states, further enlarging the pay disparity.
Nearly seven years into Metcalfe’s employment with the LSO, the Senate employed a white attorney in the office who was paid $101,500 upon hiring, roughly $24,000 more than what Metcalfe was being paid at the time. That new hire had no previous legislative experience and shared the same amount of legal experience as Metcalfe.
Metcalfe complained to Senate officials about the pay difference and urged them to pay her a salary comparable to the new attorney’s, but her request was denied by then-chair of the Senate Rules Committee Terry Burton, who was responsible for approving attorney salaries.
She resigned in 2019. The suit states that until her resignation, she “continued to be paid about half of what her white LSO attorney counterparts were paid.”
The complaint claims the Senate directly violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and demands the Senate incorporate policies to prevent racial discrimination in the future and to give Metcalfe backpay and compensation for emotional distress.
“Discriminatory employment practices, like paying a Black employee less than their white colleagues for the same work, are not only unfair, they are unlawful,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Black employee at issue in this lawsuit was paid about half the salary of her white colleagues in violation of federal law. This lawsuit makes clear that race-based pay discrimination will not be tolerated in our economy. Our work to eliminate race-based pay disparities is about promoting compliance with the law and promoting equity and fairness for all workers.”
According to an Economic Policy Institute report from 2023, the wage gap between Black and white workers in the U.S. has slightly increased since the 1970s. The average Black worker is paid 23.4 percent less than a white worker, compared to 22.3 percent in 1973.
