The discrimination lawsuit said Kristie Metcalfe was paid "significantly less" than her white co-workers for 8 years.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a lawsuit Friday against the Mississippi state Senate for discriminating against a former Black staffer. The woman, a former staff attorney in the state’s Legislative Services Office,

Friday's lawsuit alleges Kristie Metcalfe, the only Black attorney at the Mississippi State Senate, was paid about half the salary of her colleagues.

A Black attorney who formerly worked on the staff of the Republican-controlled Mississippi State Senate was the target of illegal racial discrimination, the Department of Justice alleged Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the Senate paid the former staff attorney “about half the salary of her white colleagues."

The DOJ lawsuit claims the Senate paid Kristie Metcalfe, a Black former staff attorney in the Legislative Services Office (LSO), “about half the salary of her white colleagues in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” WLBT-TV in Jackson reported.

"Discriminatory employment practices, like paying a Black employee less than their white colleagues for the same work, are not only unfair, they are unlawful,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights ...

The Mississippi Senate discriminated against a Black attorney by paying her about half of what her white colleagues were paid for doing the same job, the U.S. Justice Department says in a lawsuit it filed Friday.