An ex-HR manager is fighting back with legal action after she claims she was wrongly treated following her objecting the unfair firing of a Black employee.
She reportedly has asked for a jury trial following filing a law suit against her former company Bungie, a video game publisher.
The complaint says the plaintiff “was instructed to investigate the performance of an employee who was the only Black employee on his 50-person team within Bungie,” HR Dive reported. “After the employee expressed concerns about racial targeting by his supervisor, the HR manager said she, in turn, told her supervisor about these concerns and recommended that Bungie provide diversity training to the employee’s supervisor,” the outlet wrote.
The ex-HR manager said her manager reacted “with hostility and denial” following her recommendation and claimed that the individuals enter into training “had been there for a long time” and “are highly regarded.” She says the training wasn’t completed. After another series of actions, HR Dive reported “subsequently, she said she contacted Bungie’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion, who told her that the termination was “’too risky considering the evidence’” and instead recommended that the employee be given a written warning.”
The suit comes at a time when DEI practices are consistently being underinvested in.
As ESSENCE previously reported listings for DEI roles were down 19% last year — a larger downtick than in legal or general human resources departments per data from Textio, a company helping businesses create unbiased job ads.
“I’m cautiously concerned — not that these roles will go to zero but that there will be a spike in ‘Swiss army knife’ type roles,” Textio Chief Executive Officer Kieran Snyder told Bloomberg.