Race Discrimination
Race Discrimination“For a young Black man I’m already paying you a lot of money” was not the right reason to deny pay increase. An African-American auditor was promoted to team leader. However, unlike others who were promoted, he received no pay raise. When he inquired about this, a supervisor said that for a young Black man, he was already being “paid a lot of money.” The auditor then filed an EEO complaint. Following this, he allegedly was told he could choose between being fired or dropping the complaint, and in a heated meeting a supervisor used the n-word. The auditor was then fired. He sued for discrimination and retaliation under 42 U.S. Code 1981. The court found evidence of discrimination in pay and retaliation. It also found that the single incident of the n-word was sufficiently severe to create a racially hostile environment under the harassment standards. (The supervisor was later fired after an internal investigation concluded that he did use the word.)
Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae (D.C. Cir., 2013)
Prejudice is not necessarily discrimination. An African-American delicatessen worker was fired for stealing from the restauranti.e., not paying for food and drink she consumed. The employee sued for racial discrimination, claiming that the manager had made numerous “anti-Black comments” and disparaged African-American public figures in front of the staff. He also tolerated hostile racial comments, including use of the n-word by a customer. The court dismissed the case, finding no connection between the manager’s comments and the decision to fire the employee. The employee did not deny taking the food and drink. Fourteen other employees, many of whom were White, had been fired for the same infraction. A company is not precluded from firing a person for theft just because a manager has made prejudiced comments unrelated to the theft policy. Even a prejudiced manager can do nondiscriminatory discipline by equally enforcing rules.
