Zandra Rolón Amato (left) and Deborah Johnson, 1984. To learn more about Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato and the Papa Choux restaurant discrimination case, have a look at the links, photos, documents, and episode transcript that follow below. Their landmark discrimination case, which was led by attorney Gloria Allred, has particular resonance today as a growing number of Americans claim they have a legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, most famously in the case of a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, which you can read about here.
When Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato, two twenty-seven-year-old veterans of the LGBTQ civil rights movement, headed out for a romantic dinner on Thursday, Januat the Papa Choux restaurant in Los Angeles, they had no idea that they’d wind up in court defending their right to be served.
Zandra Rolón Amato (left) and Deborah Johnson in front of the Papa Choux restaurant sign following their court win in 1984.
