At that point, Smith said the second employeetold him that he did not want to listen to anyexplanations. Instead, he covered his ears withhis hands and asked him to leave.

Smith and his party left Grendel's.

Kuelzer said Smith was recognized as someonewho associated with Davis and who had causedproblems at the bar before.

"These people who are going to the School ofEducation have no manners whatsoever," Kuelzersaid. "They don't feel the need to live up to somestandards of behavior."

A Question of Race?

"I can't imagine a restaurant or owner allowingone of their waiters to do something like that,"Smith said. "The waiter certainly has a problemwith Marlon [Davis] and people who he associateswith Marlon. It's discrimination and illtreatment. Whether it's motivated by race, I don'tknow."

McCreary said until she learned of whathappened to Smith she and most other members ofthe group were not sure that the attack on Daviswas racially-motivated.

"Initially, we were all offended that ascustomers we would be treated that way. I don'tthink that anyone was thinking along the lines ofblack and white at that point," McCreary said.

"When it happened with George, we thought itwas another case of mistaken identity," she added."But the question then became: mistaken identitybased on what? The only common denominator wasrace and gender."

Kelly said the case of mistaken identity, whileadmittedly a common mistake, takes on moresignificance in this situation because of Davis'srace as well as the racial composition of theentire group.

"I think besides the fact that Marlin wasblack, it was a more diverse group on the whole,"Kelly said. "The attack was based one something hedidn't do. It's the whole stereotype: he's black;they all look alike; they must all act alike too."

Davis, on the other hand, said he felt from thebeginning that the attack was racially-motivated.According to Davis, at one point the waiter whowas yelling at him started pointing out people atthe table whom he "did not have a problem with."

"He pointed to the non-African Americans in thegroup and said he didn't have a problem withthem," Davis said. "Then he pointed to me and oneother African-American man in the group and saidhe had problems with us."

Kuelzer said the charges of racialdiscrimination are absurd.

"We have had disputes with this one personbefore," Kuelzer said, referring to Davis. "Mywaiters and bartenders know who the troublemakersare."