1. If the lawsuits against Hooters had not settled, do you think Hooters would have been able to raise a successful BFOQ defense? Explain.
2. Is Hooters’ hiring policy better left to the market and ethics than to the courts? Explain.
Can the Hooters restaurant chain lawfully decline to hire men to be food servers? Scantily clad “Hooters girls” serve food and beverages to Hooters restaurant customers. In the 1990s, several class-action lawsuits were brought against Hooters on behalf of rejected male applicants. Under the 1997 settlement reached in the consolidated class action, Hooters was allowed to maintain its policy of hiring females only as food servers, but it agreed to create other restaurant positions such as bartenders for which men would have equal hiring opportunities. A 2009 gender discrimination claim brought by a Texas man who was allegedly told by a manager at the Corpus Christi Hooters restaurant that he would not be hired as a waiter because of his gender resulted in a confidential settlement with Hooters.