SANTA ANA, Calif.—A purported class action race discrimination lawsuit filed Thursday by three former managers of Wet Seal Inc. charges the national retail clothing chain with targeting African-Americans because of their race and color and denying them pay and promotions on the same basis as white store employees.

Among the evidence cited in the lawsuit in Nicole Cogdell et. al vs. The Wet Seal Inc., which was filed in federal district court in Santa Ana, Calif., is an email from a senior vp of store operations after a store visit that stated, “African-American dominate(cq)—huge issue.”

The complaint states the Foothill Ranch, Calif.-based chain's practices include insisting on an image “that predominantly reflects a white image, an image reinforced by Wet Seal's advertising to the general public." The chain also holds African-American store management to higher performance standards than white employees, according to the complaint.

“In order to protect African-American employees from discrimination, managers have taken steps to ensure that African-American employees were not working in the store front when a high-level corporate executive made a store visit by, for example, sending African-American employees to the back of the store or on a lunch break, when a visit by a corporate official was expected,” states the complaint.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs include Brad Seligman, of counsel to law firm Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C. in Oakland, Calif. who is the lead counsel in the Wal-Mart gender discrimination litigation.

%%BREAK%%

Mr. Seligman said this case may more easily qualify for class action status than the Wal-Mart litigation. “The Supreme Court faulted the Wal-Mart case because we could not prove there was a general policy of discrimination,” he said.

But in the Wet Seal case, “there's an explicit policy we allege was adopted by the highest levels of the company to terminate and deny promotions” to black employees. “There's very strong evidence there was a strong policy of discrimination here,” Mr. Seligman said.

Wet Seal said in a statement, "Wet Seal is an equal-opportunity employer with a very diverse workforce and customer base. We deny any and all allegations of race discrimination and will vigorously defend this matter."

Wet Seal operates 553 stores in 47 states and Puerto Rico, including 470 Wet Seal stores and 83 Arden B stores, according to its latest earnings report.