We represent a former Carleton student who alleges she was sexually assaulted by her dance instructor. We are seeking information related to Carleton's dance program and any unwelcome conduct from current or former professors or dance instructors, including Donald Smith.
Please email: contact@tamaraholder.com or call 312-440-9000 if you have any information about Donald Smith, Carleton, or Carleton's dance program.
NOTE: This content originally appeared in The Carletonian on September 27, 2024.
Classes have started back up at Carleton, but there’s one notable change to many student’s schedules: the PE curriculum has been altered significantly.
The wide variety of PE courses taught by Carleton students have been almost entirely canceled, though some classes now have student assistants helping teach and faculty in charge, rather than being entirely student-led (some of these classes include rock climbing, juggling, Afrofit, and Nordic skiing). The total number of PE courses offered in the fall has decreased from 26 in 2023 to 16 this year (not including club or varsity sports that provide PE credit).
Additionally, instead of a large majority of PE classes taking place outside of the normal class schedule, these classes are now being taught during normal class block times.
The Physical Education, Recreation, and Athletics (PEAR) department chair Heidi Jaynes stated that the changes were made primarily because of an external review. An external review is a typical process for all departments on campus, in which roughly every ten years, a committee overseen by the Provost and the Education and Curriculum is formed. According to the Carleton website, this committee “offers a comparative perspective and assesses the overall shape and quality of the department and program and proposes suggestions for shaping its future.”
Jaynes explained, “We agreed that we wanted to make curricular changes such as adding more variety of classes taught by PEAR faculty and staff, supporting the late afternoon time slots for student wellness and extracurricular activities, partnering with the Dance department on more classes and removing student-led classes that no longer align with our policies around attendance, grading, supervision, and assessments.”
Regarding the changes to PE class schedules, Jaynes explained that the changes were made “in order to support times for extracurricular activities such as athletics, dance, theater, music and club sports. We have classes between 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. so that our PEAR faculty and staff can also shift to teaching their varsity sport teams during their afternoon/evening practices and competitions.”
One student who took Beginning West Coast Swing in the spring of 2024, a student-taught class that has since been canceled, Colin Willette ’27, feels disappointed by the changes made.
“I had a fun time in the class I took, and I feel like a really big part of that was the relaxed atmosphere the student instructors created.” Had the classes continued to be offered, Willette feels he would have taken more. “Obviously I have to keep taking PE classes because of the graduation requirement, but I think I would have gravitated towards the student-led classes.”
He also voiced concerns about the schedule changes, noting that “it’s already hard enough to schedule classes without overlap in a way that doesn’t create a crazy schedule, and now we have to worry about PE on top of that.”
The cancellation of student-instructed classes has been particularly impactful on those who relied on teaching the classes for their tuition. Carolina Cabanela ’25, who taught social dance, was one of those affected.
There were about eight students in charge of teaching Social Dance I, Social Dance I Accelerated, and Social Dance II, with two or three instructors per class. Cabanela taught one term of each class in the 2023-2024 school year and was expecting to teach again this fall.
However, “on a Friday in early May, all eight of us got an email that said, ‘We’re so sorry, but we will have to cancel Social II this term, and we will also be canceling Social I Accelerated. We are keeping Social I, though, so you pick one of the eight of you to teach the class next term,” Cabanela explained. They gave the eight students four to five hours to decide one of them that would instruct Social I.
“A lot of us use this towards tuition, almost all of us have jobs that we use to fund tuition, so it’s kinda scary, especially in May after all of the other places have finished their applications. So it was like, ‘aw man, we might be losing our jobs,’ which is scary.”
The student instructors negotiated with PEAR to allow for two student instructors along with the faculty member supervising the class, because social dance requires both a follower and a leader and the faculty member would not be a dancer.
Cabanela was selected to be one of the instructors for Social Dance I. She was disappointed in the class cancellations, but thought, “At least we kept Social Dance I, we’ll go with it.”
The school year ended without Cabanela receiving any updates on the class, but then Cabanela was surprised with more bad news. “I was at lunch and one of my friends showed me a screenshot of an email on her phone, and it said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, your social dance class has been canceled, please pick another PE class.’ And I thought to myself, that’s weird because I did not get an email about this.”
Cabanela contacted Jaynes and found out that the class had been canceled due to low attendance. The class had seven students enrolled, and the incoming freshmen had yet to register for classes. The Carleton policy for PE classes does state that “If enrollment is too low in a class, then the class may be canceled,” but it does not state the exact number of students that would be considered low enrollment.
Jaynes and Cabanela met over Zoom to discuss what happened, and Cabanela learned that all of the student-taught classes had been canceled for the fall and winter terms (except for the classes that were reformatted with student assistants and faculty supervisors or teachers).
PEAR offered to fund weekly dances for all of the dance clubs and teams at Carleton with the funds they would have spent on paying instructors, but Cabanela didn’t take them up on the offer. “I kind of just gave up after that because it was like they weren’t being honest, it didn’t feel honest, at least.”
Cabanela, who is also a captain of the ballroom dance team, has both concerns and hopes for the future of social dance at Carleton. Even if classes were to eventually return in the spring or next year, she worries that it won’t be the same. “I think, the person that I am, I will always have hope. Because I really want there to be classes. The problem is that if we go an entire year without teaching classes, all of our teachers graduate.”
In response to the disappointment voiced by students, Jaynes said, “We are grateful for the students who helped teach some classes in the past, but we have valued the experience from our external review and have made changes to better align with our PEAR mission and policies for our Carleton community.”
Nevertheless, Cabanela wants to remain hopeful about returning to teaching before she graduates in the spring. “I don’t have super high hopes about it, but we’re totally willing [to return to teaching], please! It would be great. I love teaching, I love dancing, I love teaching new dancers, I love meeting new dancers, I love that sort of stuff.”
We represent a former Carleton student who alleges she was sexually assaulted by her dance instructor. We are seeking information related to Carleton's dance program and any unwelcome conduct from current or former professors or dance instructors, including Donald Smith.
Please email: contact@tamaraholder.com or call 312-440-9000 if you have any information about Donald Smith, Carleton, or Carleton's dance program.
NOTE: This content originally appeared in The Carletonian on September 27, 2024.
You cannot register for Social Dance I, Social Dance II, West Coast or Lindy Hop anymore. Staples of Carleton dance and the PE program have been cut, and attempts by the dance community to understand why have been met with no response, confusing responses or lies from the administration. Without these PE classes, students have less ability to find dance as a creative outlet, to learn and go on to teach at various social events at Carleton, such as the social dance events at Date Knight, Midwinter Ball and Valentine’s). Everyone will come into contact with social dance at some point during their time at Carleton, and it is disheartening to see such an important part of campus life thrown to the wayside without sufficient reasoning or communication from the administration.
Why should you care about the loss of these dance classes? For one, any student at this college should be adverse to any administrative decision regarding students that was made without consultation and seemingly only to the detriment of those students. For two, it makes the PE requirement so much harder. We have to take four terms of PE, and the changes to the schedule and cutting of classes makes it that much harder for anybody to find a PE class that fits their schedule or their interest. Social Dance, especially in the winter, is one of the better-attended PE classes such that we offer it in multiple sections, and even an accelerated version for those wanting to learn it for Midwinter Ball. For three, many here will encounter social dance at some point. Taking your date or friend or whoever for a waltz at Midwinter Ball, or taking your blind date to a social dance class to make things less awkward at Date Knight are all pretty common experiences on this campus. We as the social dance community are asked to do a lot to support larger administration-run events, and we love to share our dancing with whomever is interested.
The problem with cutting all student-led social dance classes is that knowing how to dance and teaching dance are two entirely different skills. When you don’t have students shadowing more experienced student-teachers, and then teaching themselves, there is a lack of experience and a huge difficulty curve when later on dancers are asked to take on the quite difficult task of teaching the basics of dance to dozens of people at a big event. It makes for worse teaching, worse dancers and a worse experience for the people trying to learn dance for a good night out. The administration is not giving the students the chance to even learn how to teach by cutting these classes. How do you expect people who have never taught five people dance to suddenly teach a room of 50 how to dance in less than an hour?
This is egregious because dance, and especially ballroom, passes down from upper to lowerclassmen. All the tips, tricks and easy explanations of moves that make for effective teaching are already being lost, and will be entirely gone by the next academic year if Physical Education, Athletics, and Recreation (PEAR) does not move to reinstate these classes. Everybody on this campus has had a brush with social dance in one form or the other, and so if for nothing other than being able to have a less awkward, better-run time at the biggest events of the year, you should care that the social dance community is dying at the hands of the administration’s poorly thought out decision making. As PEAR has told us, there will be no social dance or any student-led PE classes even in the Winter. That’s two whole terms where nobody is actively practicing how to teach dance, and come spring and beyond we lose all of our graduating seniors (of which there are more than there are juniors), so much of the damage done is already irreparable. We are asking that they reconsider and reverse course before it gets even worse, but they have refused to do anything despite countless emails and meetings with their staff.
If none of that matters to you, the way that the administration has handled this should matter to you as a student of this institution. Note that student-teachers also earn money from their employment. PEAR decided to cancel social dance classes in July after allowing students to register for dance classes, and further decided to communicate this cancellation only to the students of the social dance class, and not the teachers. It was only when a student emailed one of the teachers that they even found out that they were no longer teaching. Student employment is a guaranteed part of financial aid at Carleton, and for a department to wantonly decide to cut employment with no warning to students is not only highly unprofessional but a worrying overreach of the position of power that the administration holds over the finances of students. Despite repeated pleas in private to just communicate, PEAR refused to give a reason behind their decision or why they continue to not hear student demands to continue a very important part of Carleton culture. This article is a testament to a total failure in communication between administration and student, where acts in good faith are met with silence or deception on behalf of the administration. An administration that makes unilateral decisions with no student involvement or input, in an opaque and unclear way, and seemingly only to make things worse for everyone involved, is not the kind of administration that we as Carleton students should be okay with having.
This is further worrying because of the knock-on effects this has on the wider social dance community itself. These social dance classes are often the first time many of us learn about dance and how fun and interesting it can be. Many people in the dance community stayed because having social dance as a PE class is an easy way to justify doing something cool but now having a reason to actually spend time on by getting credit for doing it. The removal of social dance as a PE class raises the bar to entry for dance, and in the long term is very likely to result in a decreased interest in dance overall.
Carleton, even among its peer institutions, has an especially heavy commitment to the freedom of a liberal arts education. For that same institution to espouse how free its education is and then stifle dance by making it tangibly more difficult to participate in is at best ignorant and at worst hypocritical. And need I point out that dance, while something we all do from time to time, as an academic discipline is thought of very poorly and as a waste of time compared to more “serious” subjects of study like Biology? The decision to further undervalue the study of dance by limiting options, as students push for more variety in Folk Dance and Lindy Hop classes, is not only a tone-deaf response to increased student involvement in dance but a betrayal of the ideal of a truly free liberal arts education where students are encouraged, not punished, for pursuing interests outside their intended paths.
Despite how it may come off at times, the point of this article is not to spread vitriol against the administration and is instead a request for answers. The writing here is a product of months of frustration, a lack of communication and honestly a lack of respect for the students here who put in so much time and effort out of their stacked schedules in order to bring the joy of dancing to everyone who may be interested in it. We, as students and as a social dance community, deserve better than being systemically cut out of our spaces. We deserve better.
The digital age has brought about extraordinary opportunities for connection, learning, and personal growth. However, alongside this, it has also introduced new, frightening risks. Grooming is the active, deliberate process of gaining a child’s trust and preparing them for abuse and or exploitation.
As children are gaining the ability to access the internet at younger and younger ages, grooming has become a pressing concern for parents, educators, and guardians. Recognizing the signs of grooming in online spaces is crucial for the safety and well-being of our children and teens. This guide aims to raise awareness and provide practical tools for detecting the subtle red flags that may indicate and shed light on these dangerous behaviors.
Showering Targets With Excessive Praise and Attention
Groomers often begin their attempts to create a sense of attachment and dependence by overwhelming their targets with positive reinforcement. They may frequently compliment the child’s appearance, skills, or achievements to boost their self-esteem and make them feel special.
While praise can be a healthy part of interactions, in the context of grooming, groomers will often use it excessively to build an emotional connection and gain trust. They aim to make the child feel valued and understood, which can be particularly appealing to those who may feel isolated or neglected in their offline lives. This relentless stream of flattery can quickly become a tactic for manipulation, as the groomer starts to become a significant emotional presence in the child's life.
Encouraging Secrecy and Asking to Keep Communication Hidden
Groomers often encourage secrecy as a means to isolate their targets further from their support networks. This may start as requests not to share their conversations or activities with others, under the guise of having a "special bond". This tactic is especially insidious because it preys on a child’s desire to have a unique and private relationship, one that sets them apart from their peers. As trust builds, groomers can escalate these requests into demands for hiding more concerning behaviors or communications.
Foster open lines of communication with your child about the importance of transparency, reassuring them that they can always share anything that makes them uncomfortable. Encouraging a culture of openness and trust within the family unit can be a vital defense mechanism against the secretive tactics employed by online groomers.
Moving Quickly From Initial Contact to a Deeper, More Personal Relationship
After establishing contact, groomers will often push for more intimate conversations, asking personal questions about the child's life, feelings, and experiences. They may ask the child inappropriate questions, such as whether they’ve had their first kiss yet or inquiries about their sexual experience. This swift, intimate progression serves to create a sense of closeness and intimacy, making the child feel like they have found someone who truly understands and cares for them.
Children, especially those who feel lonely or misunderstood, may be especially vulnerable to this kind of attention. Warmth, concern, and a lack of judgment from an understanding adult can make them open up and share private details they might not disclose otherwise. Encouraging children to talk about their online interactions and reassuring them that no topic is off-limits can be pivotal in helping them distinguish between genuine friendships and potentially harmful relationships.
Asking for Sensitive Details to Exploit or Manipulate the Target
As part of their manipulative strategy, groomers may gradually persuade their targets to share sensitive or personal information. This could be anything from their home address, details about their family, or even their phone number. Unfortunately, groomers exploit the trust they've built, using these details as leverage or blackmail to maintain control over their victims. They may threaten to disseminate compromising information or images to ensure compliance and silence.
If your child does this, approach the situation with calmness and compassion, as children might not understand the implications of sharing personal information online. Educating them about the dangers of revealing sensitive details to anyone, regardless of how well they think they know them, is a critical step in safeguarding their well-being.
Sharing or Asking for Inappropriate Images or Videos
Unfortunately, coercing a child to send inappropriate messages, images, videos, or other forms of media is one of the most glaring and disturbing signs of online grooming. Groomers often normalize such requests by gradually lowering the defenses of their targets, making these exchanges seem like a natural progression of their relationship. They might share explicit material first, creating an illusion of mutual trust and shared secrets.
For children and teens, especially those navigating the complex terrain of self-image and identity, the pressure to reciprocate can be immense and confusing. Discussions with your child should focus on the importance of respecting one’s own boundaries and the idea that true friends will never pressure them to do something uncomfortable. Children need to be reassured that their value and worth are not tied to their bodies or the types of sexual acts they can or cannot perform.
Offering Gifts, Money, or Other Incentives
Another alarming tactic used by groomers is offering gifts, money, or other incentives to gain the trust and compliance of their targets. This approach can be particularly enticing to children and teenagers who may not have access to such items or monetary resources otherwise. These offers might start innocently enough, with small tokens or gifts meant to express appreciation or friendship. However, they can quickly escalate to more substantial or conditional rewards, creating a sense of indebtedness and obligation in the young person.
Children receiving these gifts may feel a complex mix of emotions, from excitement and gratitude to confusion and unease. They may believe that accepting gifts requires them to reciprocate in ways that make them uncomfortable or compromised. Encourage children to always share with a trusted adult if someone offers them gifts, especially if the giver asks them to keep it a secret. Assure them that they deserve love, attention, and kindness without any strings attached and that their safety and well-being are of utmost priority.
Using Guilt, Threats, or Emotional Manipulation to Control or Influence
Groomers often resort to guilt, threats, or emotional manipulation to maintain control over their targets. They might use phrases that incite guilt, such as "If you really cared about me, you would do this," or express disappointment to make the child feel responsible for their emotions. In more severe cases, groomers may resort to explicit threats, warning that they will cause harm or reveal sensitive information if their demands are not met. This manipulative tactic can trap young individuals in a cycle of fear and coercion, where their actions are driven by an overwhelming sense of obligation or self-preservation.
Fostering an environment where children feel safe discussing their concerns without fear of judgment or punishment is key. By standing alongside them with compassion and understanding, we can empower our children to navigate their interactions with confidence and assertiveness, ensuring their safety and mental health are always protected.
Remember, the key to protecting our children lies in education, empathy, and vigilance. Together, we can create a safer online world where our children can grow, learn, and thrive without fear of exploitation. At the Law Firm of Tamara N Holder, we’re dedicated to making the world a safer place for everyone, even in online spaces.
As a women’s rights lawyer, Tamara Holder has extensive experience protecting women and young girls from those who would exploit them. Trust us to fight for you and your family’s rights.
This story was originally reported in The Advocate by CHRISTOPHER WIGGINS, MAY 01 2024 1:00 PM EST
A Georgia woman has filed a discrimination complaint against her company, saying it for created a toxic work environment for LGBTQ+ people and women. Megan McDaniel, a welder at Republic Services of Georgia, has filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. McDaniel, a lesbian, claims that derogatory comments and inappropriate behavior toward LGBTQ+ employees are rampant and largely overlooked by company leadership.
McDaniel says the incidents began shortly after she started working at Republic Services in May 2023. She says that 90 days into her tenure, she was targeted with offensive jokes and inappropriate remarks in a work-related group chat, including comments that disparaged her sexual orientation and gender. One specific example she recalls was a derogatory speculation about lesbians’ physical attributes meant to demean her.
“The comments started being directed towards lesbians and gay people,” McDaniel explains. “It was all very direct and uncomfortable.”
She says the harassment escalated dramatically when McDaniel raised her concerns to her supervisor, who also participated in the group chats. Rather than addressing the behavior, she claims, he retaliated by setting discriminatory rules specifically against McDaniel, excluding her from job assignments, and mocking a medical condition in a way designed to humiliate her in front of her colleagues.
In an especially humiliating incident, a sex toy was placed at the workplace, purportedly to mock her sexual orientation. McDaniel described how her supervisor publicly handled the situation, exacerbating her distress: “He not only embarrassed me that time with the adult toy lying in the air; he also contributed to the inappropriate mocking and making me feel incredibly uncomfortable, talking about, ‘Hey, Megan, is this yours? Did you drop it? Is this what you lesbians use?’”
COURTESY REPUBLIC SERVICES
Despite repeated complaints to human resources, McDaniel says Republic Services’ response was minimal and dismissive. The only significant action taken was a company-wide training session, which she says was perfunctory and failed to address the underlying issues or change the discriminatory culture.
Tamara Holder, McDaniel’s attorney, underscored the severity of the situation, calling it “not just harassment or anti-LGBTQ behavior but so violent, it’s abuse.” Holder further criticized Republic Services for its failure to address these issues, which she suggested is indicative of a broader disregard for employees who are not white males. “We currently have four other cases on behalf of Black workers at all levels throughout the company. And I think what Megan highlights so well is that the way that this company operates is abusive towards truly anybody that is not a white male,” Holder says.
“Companies like Republic say that they care and that they do the right thing, but when they receive a complaint, they don’t,” she adds.
Republic Services of Georgia has not responded to The Advocate’s request for comment on the allegations.
For McDaniel, welding is not just a job but a lifelong passion inspired by her family. “I was in the corporate for nine years, and it took me until I had my daughter to have the courage to do something I wanted to do forever, which was going to school to be a welder,” McDaniel shares. Her commitment to this career is more than employment; it’s about fulfilling a personal dream and breaking barriers in a traditionally male-dominated field.
“I don’t want to be treated differently. I just want to be allowed to work and prove myself like anyone else without all this hostility,” she says.
NOTE: This content was originally published by WBEZ Chicago. Read the full article here.
The doctor-patient relationship requires trust. What happens when a patient feels like a doctor hasn’t upheld professional responsibility?
In two separate cases in Illinois, dozens of women have accused their OBGYNs of committing medical and sexual battery while undergoing exams.
The cases raise questions for patients. The relationship between a patient and a doctor requires trust, clear communication and integrity. So, what happens when a patient feels like a doctor hasn’t upheld professional responsibility? What is a patient supposed to do if touched inappropriately or made to feel uncomfortable?
That case has had wider repercussions. In June of 2022, Tamara Holder, an attorney representing 36 victims, filed six new lawsuits against Ortega and his former employers – NorthShore and Swedish Covenant. The suits allege that hospital officials allowed Ortega to continue working despite being under criminal investigation for sexual assault.
In August of 2022, a suburban OBGYN, Dr. Vernon Cannon, was accused of sexual battery by two women while working at Duly Health and Care in Arlington Heights. Additional misconduct lawsuits accuse Cannon of performing medical procedures while intoxicated.
In these cases, women are trying to hold doctors and the institutions that hired them accountable for alleged crimes.
When it comes to obstetrics and gynecology care, what should patients know before seeing their doctor? How can patients stay safe? WBEZ posed these questions to Kavita Shah Arora, head of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Ethics Committee and Jody Madeira, a professor and Co-Director of the Center for Law, Society and Culture at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.
August 10, 2023 01:33 P
Tamara Holder & Team have filed a lawsuit against Northwestern on behalf of Lacrosse Player.
"We are determined to end the cycle of institutional abuse. Northwestern can no longer hide from their public-facing elitism and secret coverups," Tamara Holder, an attorney representing the plaintiff, said in a statement to Crain's.
Please call 312-440-9000 or email intake@tamaraholder.com if you have any information about Northwestern, the Athletic Department, Derrick Gragg, Homewood-Flossmoor High School, or any other issues related to sexual abuse in education.
Credit: TNS
This story was originally reported by Michael E. Kanell in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 18, 2023
Two human resources employees say they were fired for telling managers of bias in hiring, pay and drug testing
Two former Blue Bird employees have filed complaints with a federal agency charging the iconic bus manufacturer with racial discrimination.
The two women, both Black, have asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate their charges that they were recruited by the Fort Valley-based company to work in the human resources department, but were fired in recent months after they told their superiors in management of discriminatory practices in hiring, pay and drug testing.
Before being fired, they also told executives that Black women at the company were being targeted for sexual harassment.
Company officials did not respond to requests for comments this week from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The complaints add another chapter to the stories of trouble at Blue Bird, the largest employer in Peach County. On May 11, wage workers voted for representation by the United Steel Workers. Supporters of the drive complained about pay and the treatment of workers.
Three days after the vote, Chief Executive Matthew Stevenson abruptly departed — “for personal reasons,” the company said — and was replaced by his predecessor. Three days after that, Stevenson was named president and chief executive of Kentucky-based Holley Inc., which designs, makes and sells a range of high-performance products for cars and trucks.
The unfolding events come as the bus maker is poised to ride a wave of potentially lucrative work as a beneficiary of funding from recently passed federal legislation aimed at fueling the electric vehicle industry.
Those measures included more than $10 billion for clean public transit and school buses nationally, much of it targeted to replacing existing school buses with zero-emission and low-emission models. Also, Georgia schools have been awarded $50.8 million to buy buses, while communities in the state are receiving $31 million to purchase transit buses, according to a release from the White House.
The women alleging discrimination were not wage workers and were not among the workers eligible to vote on unionization, so their firing had no direct relation to the union drive, said Tamara Holder, the attorney representing both. “But I think these complaints are parallel. I think there is a problem with the climate there.”
The AJC agreed not to use the names of the women filing complaints at this point because of their fear that they would be punished in their next job search. Complaints filed with the EEOC are not public, according to a spokeswoman for the agency. However, when the agency believes a complaint has merit and takes the matter to court, that action would be public, she said.
EEOC investigations can last months or years. After an investigation, the EEOC can sue on behalf of the women in federal court. As part of their complaint, the women have asked to be paid damages for the allegedharm suffered, but have specified no amount, according to Holder.
Black employees are the vast majority of the front-line, lesser-paid jobs at Blue Bird — 1,176 of the 1,463 wage workers, said attorney Holder, citing a count last fall by the company itself. Of the 227 salaried employees, 41 were Black.
The senior of the two women said that while problems at the company involved racist and misogynist behavior, the issues were even broader than that. She said she had been hired last June after a career of more than two decades in the field.
She had been lured away to head Blue Bird’s human resources, she said, from a company where she had been a vice president. “I was the only female African American at that level.”
From the start, things seemed wrong, she said.
Most executives worked from corporate offices in Macon, but she was placed in what she said was a rat-infested office at the Fort Valley manufacturing facility. “Then I had to purchase my own office supplies, my own printer, my own mouse and mouse pad.”
She was fired in October.
In her filing with the EEOC, she said she was fired for complaining about a workplace “rife with discrimination,” but also with health and other violations.
“They were not respectful of workers,” she told the AJC.
Among the allegations:
— Rules for drug testing were stricter for the wage workers, most of them Black, than for the salaried employees, most of them white,
— Women on the cleaning crew were routinely victims of sexual harassment by men who walked into bathrooms where they were cleaning and made lewd comments, unzipped their pants and urinated in their presence.
— Pay for new white workers was routinely set higher than for Black workers in similar positions.
— The company resisted efforts to provide accommodations — like chairs — for women workers in a late stage of pregnancy.
“It’s not okay what they have been doing,” said the less senior of the women, who said she was recruited from a job on the West Coast last summer to work in human resources at Blue Bird.
Today, we appeared before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board on behalf of our client Gasi Pitter, who has served over half of his 40-year prison sentence. He has raised his daughter Alexia Pitter from behind bars. Lexi is a student at Howard University, an accomplished poet and writer, and active member in the community. Their story is special and we hope that our petition is granted. Thank you CBS2 Chicago for covering our request for clemency.
Chicago-based Attorney Tamara Holder has been filing clemency petitions - seeking commutation for incarcerated individuals and pardons for rehabilitated felons not in prison - for nearly 18 years. She has successfully petitioned for clemency before Illinois governors Pat Quinn, Bruce Rauner, and JB Pritzker.
CHICAGO, Dec. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A racial discrimination lawsuit has been filed against Zep Inc., a leading industrial and consumer cleaning products company, by one of its Chicago-based employees. The female employee, who is Black alleges the following:
In November 2021, during a virtual training session, Zep's Vice President of Sales and Service said something to the effect of, "This may offend some people but...." and then repeatedly used a known racial slur, as he described Black workers in the South. The plaintiff was the only Black person in the virtual room.
The slur was repeated in the presence of at least a dozen other employees, yet nobody voiced an objection.
The plaintiff immediately complained to multiple people within the company including to HR.
Zep's Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer told the plaintiff that the VP of Sales did not know the word was a known racial slur.
When the plaintiff pushed back, the Executive VP told her that since she "couldn't get over it," he would help her "transition from Zep," despite the plaintiff stating that she liked her job but that she did not feel safe.
Then in January 2022, in an attempt to silently push her out of her job, the Executive VP handed the plaintiff a "Separation Agreement and Release of Claims," offering her 12-weeks' compensation, disguised as wages, in exchange for her confidentiality and departure from the company. She refused to leave.
In response, Zep continued to retaliate against her by assigning her more dead accounts.
The plaintiff is a virtual account representative for Zep, a manufacturer of cleaning products to businesses and retailers, including but not limited to Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, and Ace Hardware, along with manufacturing giants like Siemens.
About The Law Firm of Tamara N. Holder
The plaintiff is represented by Tamara Holder, who focuses her law practice on employment discrimination, sexual abuse/harassment, and institutional abuse. Holder is a nationally recognized voice on workplace equality and worked as a progressive legal analyst and host on Fox News Channel for nearly a decade. The Law Firm of Tamara N. Holder, LLC, is a boutique practice founded in 2005 by Chicago. For more information, visit tamaraholder.com.
