Abercrombie & Fitch Setttlement Accepted

Abercrombie and Fitch's proposed $40 million settlement of an employment discrimination case has been approved by the judge, reports the L.A. Times.  A spokesman for the company cites a desire to avoid protracted litigation as the impetus for the settlement, but the $40 million settlement shows that they feared their exposure in the case.

Despite some concerns in the blawgosphere over the meta-narrative of the case, so-called "image discrimination," it bears mentioning that even had the case gone to trial, the plaintiffs would still have to prove that their race or sex was a motivating factor in Abercrombie's adverse decisions.  Image discrimination is only a meta-narrative which seeks to show the way that the company's marketing policy caused decisionmakers to make impermissible judgments in hiring, promotion, and firing.  In other words, the emergence of a new field of "image discrimination law" doesn't seem to have been likely even in the event that the case was tried.