IBM fired white worker to fulfill diversity goals, lawsuit claims
Adds IBM statement in paragraphs 6-7
By Daniel Wiessner
Aug 21 (Reuters) -IBM is accused in a new lawsuit of forcing out a high-performing white consultant in order to further the company's goals of building a more diverse workforce.
The lawsuit filed late Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, federal court is the latest from America First Legal, a conservative group founded by ex-Trump administration officials, to claim that corporate diversity policies violate federal anti-discrimination laws.
Plaintiff Randall Dill says he was placed on a performance improvement plan in July 2023 despite receiving only positive feedback in his seven years as a senior managing consultant at IBM. The plan was impossible to complete and Dill was fired last October, according to the complaint.
Dill says IBM had race and sex quota systems that guided hiring and promotion decisions and that it based executives' bonuses in part on whether they had met those goals, giving them a strong incentive to push out white men like him.
"Plaintiff suffered significant damages, including lost wages, loss of professional and career development opportunities, and significant non-economic injuries, including humiliation, embarrassment, and loss of reputation," Dill's lawyers wrote in the complaint.
IBM in a statement said it does not use hiring quotas and never has.
“These allegations are baseless, as neither race nor gender played any role in the decision to end this individual’s employment with IBM," the company said.
The lawsuit accuses IBM of race and sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars workplace discrimination, and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits race discrimination in contracts.
America First Legal has made similar claims against a slew of major companies, including in about two dozen complaints seeking investigations by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The group has also filed several lawsuits, most on behalf of individual plaintiffs such as Dill. Courts have dismissed lawsuits against Progressive Insurance and a company it partners with to provide grants to Black entrepreneurs, The North Face, Expedia and Texas A&M University.
America First is appealing those rulings, which were largely made on technical grounds and not the merits of the cases. Lawsuits against companies, including Meta Platforms, Expedia, Ally Financial and IBM subsidiary Red Hat, are pending. The companies have denied wrongdoing.
The group notched a victory last week when a California federal judge refused to dismiss a white screenwriter's claims that CBS denied him a staff position on the show "SEAL Team." The judge did not explain his ruling, which rejected CBS' claims that its ability to choose writers from specific backgrounds is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The case is Dill v. International Business Machines Corp, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, No. 1:24-cv-00852.
For Dill: Andrew Block of America First Legal; Christopher Berry of Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge
For IBM: Not available
Read more:
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Ex-Trump administration officials target corporate diversity efforts
Conservative activist uses Civil War-era law to challenge US corporate diversity
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