Donald, that's not the point. I used the term "admissible" not because every colloquial discussion needs to be reduced to legalese, but rather because a court's process (civil or criminal) is about determining the validity of a report. The point of discussing relevance of evidence is precisely to avoid "well Lauren says X" and to throw that into the mix as if it's just as valuable a datum as reports of enforcement policy that LR has brought up. In order to determine whether Lauren's statement is even worth considering you need to use some standard other than "hey listen to what this person said". A court process is such a standard, but naturally we could suggest alternate ones that are also sensible.
I interpret LR's use of the term "evidence" as meaning actual data we can rely on, as opposed to rumors or unverified statements, which colloquially are not relevant as 'evidence' of anything other than that someone made a statement for whatever reason. And I meant it in a similar way, and specified further upon being pressed that I meant evidence that matters. Sure, there are kinds of evidence that exist and are irrelevant, such as planted evidence, falsified evidence, unreliable evidence, etc, and we don't need to assume the word "evidence of X" includes any of those. An eyewitness account *may* be good evidence if we were to learn the basis of it, but until then it may just as possibly be in the garbage bin type of evidence; i.e. the kind that I don't think LR was referring to (correct me if I'm wrong, LR, it's not my intention to speak for you).
So no, this isn't a deconstructionist "you can't claim anything" argument, and I think by now you know I don't make such arguments. The entire reason hearsay evidence is inadmissible due to lack of ability to cross is exactly because the account is unverified. It's just a fancy legal way of saying that hearsay isn't worth much by itself.
So did Lauren literally witness the entire event from start to finish, first-hand, including the interactions with previous customers? If so then it wouldn't be hearsay at all. Did Lauren get parts of her story from others, and if so, which parts? And from which people? Did she get those parts from the guys themselves who were being asked to leave? What if it was them - would that change your consideration of the objectivity of her account of things?
My point, at any rate, is that if we knew what the basis of Lauren's claim was we could consider whether it's valid evidence. If we don't then I don't see how this should be considered as on par with documented precedent of how the Starbucks policy is implemented in general.
As a complete side note to WS, there's no direct reason I can see to suppose that this policy is even indirectly racist unless you endorse the view that Pyrtolin used to that any policy with uneven results across race is racist by definition. Why even suppose that the policy might be racist without considering whether the employee enforcing it is racist? There's quite a spread of evidence you'd need to pull to make a case either way, and until such a case is made I don't see the logical value of even suggesting that racism may be a factor. As you also seem to suggest, the lack of a clear case being made, accompanied by the implication of racism anyhow which would create an incontestable racism narrative, might be preferred by some people. Would you agree that in this case it would be a case of the media race-baiting for ratings?