The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Richland-based KLLM Transport Services on Wednesday, alleging the company discriminated against female students at its driver training academy, the agency said. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the EEOC said.
Court filings say KLLM required students who received conditional job offers to complete on-the-road training with an experienced driver before working independently. Before the roughly six-week training, students completed forms to indicate whether they preferred a male or female trainer or the earliest available trainer. Trainers could also indicate a preference, the filings said.
The lawsuit says KLLM declined to assign female students to male trainers who said they preferred to train only men, a practice that often forced women to wait longer for on-the-road placements. The suit says female students who requested female trainers were not paid while they waited to be paired, while male students who requested male trainers were paid.
The complaint also alleges KLLM required female students to tell their spouses if they requested the first available or a male trainer and to certify that they had done so, a requirement not imposed on male students. Court papers say the company required trainers and students to sleep in the truck bunk even when they were opposite sexes. “Rather than provide the female student driver’s single-sex sleeping quarters that protected their privacy and ensured equal employment opportunity, the employer here instead decided to adopt a series of sex-based discriminatory policies that treated women trainees worse than male trainees and disadvantaged them in their employment opportunities, which is unlawful disparate treatment,” Catherine Eschbach, acting EEOC general counsel, said in a statement.
KLLM Transport Services is owned by Tommy and James Duff, according to the company and public records, and Duff Capital is at least a part owner. According to Forbes, Duff Capital Investors bought KLLM for $12 million in 2008 and the trucking company reported $600 million in revenue in 2018; Forbes describes Duff Capital as the largest privately held business in Mississippi and estimates the brothers’ combined net worth at $7 billion. Tommy Duff has publicly said he is considering a run for governor in 2027 but has not announced a candidacy. KLLM and a representative for Tommy Duff did not respond to a request for comment by publication time Thursday.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
