A self-described "plus-sized" college student who says she was told that she was "obviously pregnant" and "not pretty enough" to dance on a platform in a bar in Iowa is claiming that the bar's bouncers discriminated against her — and she's telling the press all about it. Twenty-one-year-old Jordan Ramos says that she went to Iowa City's Union Bar on March 3 and was stopped short when she tried to join in the fun with her friends.
ABC News reports:
“There was only one difference: I am a plus-sized individual. The bouncer said ‘Look, you will never get up on this platform. Go back to the dance floor where you belong,’ ” Ramos told ABC News.
Ramos said a friend of hers tried to talk to the manager, but he refused to talk to her. The manager told them to leave, Ramos said. She sent the manager an email, which she says was never answered.
A social work professor at the University of Iowa told Ramos to return to the bar.
“She told my friends and I to go back and see if the same thing happens and to try to get them to say aloud ‘I am not allowing you up because of your size,’ ” Ramos said.
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“He said, ‘You’re not pretty enough and you’re pregnant.’ I said, ‘I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that I am not pregnant.’ He then looked at my stomach and said, ‘You obviously are.’ They knew I was not pregnant; it was [their] way of calling me fat without having to actually say it,” Ramos said.
Ramos approached the Human Rights Commission in Iowa City but was told that no investigation would be initiated because size discrimination is not illegal. If the allegations are true, the bar's conduct may not be against the law, but it is mean-spirited and pointless, not to mention pretty embarrassing for the establishment and bad for its relationship with the public. We predict a not-very-sincere apology from Union Bar management as soon as they realize that.
Read more at ABC News.
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