Jordan Ramos, a 21-year-old student at the University of Iowa, is accusing the bouncers at Union Bar in Iowa City of discrimination after they refused to let her dance on the bar. According to Ramos, the bouncers told her that she was “too fat” and “not pretty enough” to dance on the bar.
According to the Daily Mail, Ramos attended the bar with a few of her skinnier friends last month. When her friends got up on the bar to dance, Ramos was stopped because the bar top was “at capacity.” Ramos waited until a few of her friends stepped down and then tried again to get up on the bar to dance. Ramos was stopped again. This time the bouncers said that she looked pregnant and wasn’t pretty enough to dance.
In an email to ABC, Ramos said:
“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.””
The NY Daily News reports that Ramos tried to file a complaint with civil rights activists in Iowa City but was told that there was no law against size discrimination.
Ramos told the Des Moines Daily Register:
“It made me start questioning myself and thinking, ‘Are my friends so much better than me?’ I know they’re thinner, but those bouncers made them seem more valuable. We all paid the same cover to get into the Union, but we’re not given access to all the same things they have to offer. I feel like it is their job to provide everybody a great time, especially if everybody pays the same price.”