IS THIS DISCRIMINATION? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Assume that a CEO of some organization decides that he no longer wants a minority woman, who held a supervisory position, on his staff. She has somehow upset him. Consequently, he has her marched out the door one day without any severance pay–despite more than a decade of service–to the organization. So far, the CEO has done nothing illegal, but what if when the organization terminated five previous White men from the staff they got thousands in severance pay and/or months of notice to find a new job.
Even when the organization became dissatisfied with the performance and conduct of two women who held the same job as the minority woman, they were merely given lateral transfers in the organization. Both eventually left the organization, but not before the organization paid them thousands in salary while they searched for new positions.
Still unsure of whether the minority woman has a discrimination case? Well, add this to the mix. The CEO decided for the first time in the history of the organization to notify everyone on his staff and his clients that this woman and another staffer associated with her were terminated for misconduct.
So what do you think? Does this woman have a good case of discrimination? You bet she does. In fact, both the minority woman and the White man who was terminated along with her have a case. He can point to the past treatment of other White men and ask whether he was denied any severance pay as well because of his “association” with the Black woman. Check out this Fedsmill piece on Associational Discrimination if you never heard of that. Or this one.
If they win, the CEO’s behavior could end up costing the agency up to $300,000 in compensatory damages, sizeable attorney fees, and a chunk of back pay. Perhaps more importantly to the organization, its reputation will be publicly and significantly smeared, which will likely doom future organizing efforts.
Racism is a very ugly thing, even when CEOs don’t think of themselves as racists, but as high value, good-to-the-core crusaders for their employees.
