UPDATE (Feb. 10, 2022, 8:50 a.m. ET): The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Tesla alleging racial discrimination and harassment, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Tesla, the car and technology company owned by internet troll Elon Musk, may have another racial discrimination lawsuit on its hands, the company’s latest annual financial filing revealed.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing investigated “undisclosed allegations of race discrimination and harassment at unspecified Tesla locations,” the company said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.
“The DFEH gave notice that, based upon the evidence collected, it believes that it has grounds to file a civil complaint against Tesla,” Tesla said in its filing.
The details of this particular case are still unknown as the suit hasn’t officially been filed, but it should cast a pall over Tesla, a company that has faced numerous allegations of racial discrimination over the past decade.
Just last week, a Black woman named Kaylen Barker filed a racial discrimination lawsuit that said, “Being a Black worker at Tesla’s renowned California factory, is to be forced to step back in time and suffer painful abuses reminiscent of the Jim Crow era.”
Last year, the company was ordered to pay Owen Diaz, a Black man, nearly $137 million for racial harassment and abuse. Diaz alleged Tesla employees drew swastikas and racist graffiti around Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, and supervisors didn’t stop them.
“Tesla’s progressive image was a facade papering over its regressive, demeaning treatment of African American employees,” according to Diaz’s lawsuit.
In its most recent SEC filing, Tesla said it filed a post-trial motion in the Diaz case requesting a new trial or a reduction in damages. The company said it would pursue an appeal if necessary.
“The company does not believe that the facts and law justify the verdict,” Tesla said in its filing.
Last year, Tesla was also ordered to pay another Black man and former employee, Melvin Barry, $1 million after he filed a lawsuit claiming his supervisors called him the N-word.
You’re seeing the trend, no?
In another case, a class action lawsuit filed in 2017, a Black former employee named Marcus Vaughn alleges he and Black workers at Tesla’s Fremont factory endured ”pre-civil rights era race discrimination.” That treatment, he claims, included being greeted with the N-word by Tesla co-workers and supervisors.
Musk has touted Tesla as a futuristic, forward-thinking company, but these lawsuits chip away at that image. Tesla may produce 21st- century cars, but its factories seem to be operating under early-20th-century politics.
UPDATE (Feb. 10, 2022, 9 a.m. ET): The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Tesla alleging racial discrimination and harassment, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.