In 1994, six African American employees of Texaco filed suit for racial discrimi
ID: 347890 • Letter: I
Question
In 1994, six African American employees of Texaco filed suit for racial discrimination. The suit languished in court until 1996 when the New York Times published damaging reports of a secretly recorded conversation in which three senior Texaco executives discussed the destruction of documents and ridiculed diversity efforts at the company. In the wake of the resulting uproar, Texaco settled the suit by agreeing to pay $141 million in compensation and set aside $35 million to improve the diversity program. The employees' suit was based on both incidents of apparent discrimination and statistics that showed Texaco to lag behind other companies in the industry in hiring and promoting members of racial minorities. The discrimination occurred despite an explicit company policy and an affirmative action plan. The problem, according to critics, was the lack of oversight and implementation.Explanation / Answer
1. Texaco was discriminatory in its policies. However, to show that it showed no discrimination, it needs to prove that those selected or promoted over the racial minorities candidates were superior to them in terms of skills, qualifications and experience. For this, they might need to produce documentary evidence. The employees will have to show that the organization biased against them in promotion and providing them opportunities of growth. For this, they need to produce evidence in form of superior reviews, feedback and ratings despite which they were not considered.
2. The discrimination is not always in form of overt incidents. It can also happen as a policy matter where company can systematically engage in discrimination by excluding minorities out of key positions, promotions and deny them growth opportunities without doing anything in open. Statistical data along with evidence of discriminatory policies is good enough.
3. The burden of proof is with the organization against which a leading newspaper has revealed the proof of its discriminatory policies. The organization needs to prove that those conversations were not genuine or related to other issues, in addition to explain the cause of trend present in the stastical data.
4. Poor implementation and lack of training among the senior staff might be the reason of occurance of such events despite the policy in place. To avoid repitition, the company must train its staff in diversity and cultural sensitivity, employ checks and balances to detect and resolve the issues before they assume dangerous proportions. The money should be used in designing and implementing a company- wide cultural sensitivity framework that should include a dedicated cell to train the employees in racial sensitivity and promote equality across the organization and monitor, detect and correct the issues related to racial discrimination. A zero tolerance policy towrds such incidents should also be devised. Training and development inputs from best organizations in this matter needs to be included in the policy.
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