Hooters Vs. The Eeoc

BOYS will be boys - and for now, Hooters girls will remain girls.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) quietly dropped a federal sex-discrimination probe of the wildly successful Hooters restaurant chain, whose international claim to fame rests on the employment of attractive waitresses clad in trademark orange shorts.

The federal commission had demanded a $22 million fine from the company on behalf of men seeking jobs as, er, waitresses. (The restaurant hires men as kitchen staffers and managers, but not as food servers, hosts or bartenders.) The EEOC also wanted Hooters to institute sensitivity training and a scholarship fund to enhance employment opportunities for men.

It's important to note that the probe was initiated by the EEOC itself, not by any disgruntled male job applicant. In other words, no one gave a hoot about Hooters' commercial success in serving meals with female sex appeal until the feds came along and made it a controversy.

Thanks to a feisty corporate campaign, the 13,000 employees of Hooters - mostly women - exposed the investigation as an example of heavy-handed enforcement and a waste of limited financial resources. It is safe to say this capricious crackdown was not what the drafters of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had in mind when they sought to guarantee equal opportunity.

EEOC Chairman Gilbert F. Casellas admitted as much in a letter to the House subcommittee on employment: "(I)t is wiser for the EEOC to devote its scarce litigation resources to other cases." Of course. With a backlog of 120,000 cases pending, the office has far better things to do with its time and our money.