Race Discrimination

Squarely, the legal issues involving race discrimination have evolved over the last twenty five years dramatically. Evidentiary issues are complicated as most discrimination is insidious or latent, rather than open, blatant discriminatory comments made in the course of employment decisions.

The kinds of discrimination have evolved in that time period as well. For example, our firm has received numerous inquiries for race discrimination alleged to have occurred from light-skinned black people against darker-skinned employees. In addition, under Title VII, race is a distinct category from nationality. Therefore, discrimination can exist between different groups of black people. For example, one of our clients was told by a business that they only hired, “Africans,” meaning people who in their lifetime emigrated from Africa, as opposed to “African Americans,”  who have been a part of this country for hundreds of years. Reverse discrimination has also evolved in this time period; sometimes, a case being as simple as a company mistakenly believing that in the name of diversity, it had a license to ignore Title VII, race discrimination laws.

The race discrimination cases against black, white and Asian Americans (we proudly represent both “Africans” and “African Americans”) our firm handles typically involve highly educated, career oriented employees, who were passed over for their companies top level positions. The positions sought were given to persons of different races, who weren’t as qualified as our clients.  

We have litigated hundreds of race discrimination cases over the years. Through that experience, we have seen the strategies companies and federal agencies employ to make the promotion, demotion and termination decisions, notwithstanding Title VII. Let our experience work for you.