Jo Ann Bass, owner of Joe's Stone Crab restaurant in Miami Beach, was stunned to receive a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging her with employment discrimination. A locally prominent women's advocate, Bass employs women in most of the restaurant's management positions, has served and employed blacks at a time when others wouldn't, and always boasted that her staff of 280 was so diverse it looked like a "mini United Nations."

But the EEOC charged that while the restaurant is owned by a woman and managed mostly by women, it had a tradition of hiring only men as waiters. The agency said that between 1986 and 1991 the restaurant hired 108 male waiters, and no women, a record that may have discouraged women from even applying. A federal judge agreed with the EEOC, finding the restaurant guilty of "unintentional" sex discrimination, and is set to hear testimony on potential damages of up to $1 million. The case, however, was not initiated in response to any woman's complaint, but rather as a "commissioner's charge," a device that allows the EEOC itself to accuse a business of discrimination.

Bass does not dispute the fact that the vast majority of waiters have been men, but she claims that was simply because most of the qualified applicants turned out to be men. "I didn't think it was my responsibility to beat the bushes looking for female servers," Bass said. "We hired who was qualified and came through the door." According to Bass, food servers are required to be deft in carrying trays that could weigh as much as 40 pounds, and that in the first year servers could work only a lunch shift, which may have discouraged women from applying.

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