What did Shannon Phillips do? Fired Starbucks manager wins $25 million from coffee giant according to jury 

Starbucks’ fired manager, Shannon Phillips, has won $25 million from the coffee company after she won a case against them. The ex-store manager was fired in 2018 after a dispute between the staff and two Black men in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia.

The entire fiasco happened after the two Black men, who were roughly 23 at the time, were sitting at Starbucks waiting for a third person for a meeting. However, the whole matter became intense when they both kept sitting for a long time but hadn’t ordered anything. Just in the middle of it all, one of the men, Rashon Nelson, got up to visit the restroom but wasn’t allowed by the staff to do so.

They were then arrested by the police after the Starbucks staff called the authorities as the two men were not ready to move or order. The arrest was then captured and shared on multiple social media platforms, which sparked outrage among netizens who accused Starbucks of being racist.

The coffee chain then fired Shannon Phillips, who was the store manager of the Rittenhouse Square branch at the time. However, another manager who was Black was retained, and nothing was done about him. All of this led Philips to file a lawsuit against the coffee giant in 2019, claiming that she was used as a "scapegoat" and let go only because "she was white."

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“Upper management of Starbucks were looking for a scapegoat”: Ex-manager Shannon Phillips’ lawyers accused the coffee chain of racism

After Shannon Phillips was fired, she sued the coffee chain for taking this action, as she stated that she was not even aware of the matter. The lawyer for the ex-manager claimed that:

“The upper management of Starbucks were looking for a 'scapegoat' to terminate to show action was being taken."

The lawyer also questioned why was the black manager not arrested and said:

"This was all about the appearances, the optics of what they did. If Shannon Phillips is Black, does it play out like this? This case is about Starbucks and self-preservation."

The matter then carried on for nearly four years, after which a federal jury in New Jersey claimed that Phillips should be awarded $25 million in damages. The jury claimed that the manager who was fired had her federal civil rights violated since she was solely let go because she was "white."

On the other hand, during the arguments, the lawyers of Starbucks denied claims that the company was "targeting" Shannon. They instead emphasized that Shannon was fired as she lacked performance and could not handle the incident at the time.

Nonetheless, the company quickly apologized after the matter blew up on social media, and many accused the staff of racism. To help the matter die down a bit, the chain also started racial bias training at all US stores. However, as the coffee chain loses the case and once again faces the heat of social media users, it or any of its representatives have not yet come forward to address the matter.