Dive Brief:
- Mid-Michigan Home Health & Hospice allegedly refused to assign a Black certified nursing assistant to certain home visits because it believed the clients didn’t want to be assigned Black employees, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claimed in a Feb. 24 lawsuit, EEOC v. Mid-Michigan Home Health & Hospice, LLC.
- Per the complaint, the Black CNA provided in-home bathing assistance to patients. When she asked the HR director why a White CNA hired after her was getting more hours then she was, she was allegedly told that patients in the area “are from old times” and “don’t care for Black people.”
- During the two months the Black CNA worked for the Flint-based home care provider, she was assigned five times to the area, while three White CNAs were assigned there more than 135 times, according to the complaint. The Black CNA repeatedly complained about race discrimination, the lawsuit said. Less than two days after she questioned why she had been removed from several assignments, she was fired via text for lack of work, the complaint alleged.
Dive Insight:
EEOC sued Mid-Michigan for alleged race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Customer preference is not a defense to race discrimination,” EEOC Regional Attorney Kenneth Bird emphasized in a press release. He added that Mid-Michigan’s alleged decision to not assign the Black CNA to a particular area because of her race “was illegal, as was [the company’s] decision to fire her for complaining about it.”
Mid-Michigan did not respond to a request for a comment.
According to the lawsuit, the Black CNA was hired as a part-time employee, although she made it clear she wanted to work full-time, or as close to full-time as possible. When the White CNA was hired and immediately given more work than her, she questioned why and was told about clients’ race-based preferences, the complaint alleged.
Additionally, instead of assigning her to patients in the area at issue, which was close to where she lived, Mid-Michigan frequently scheduled her to visit patients 90 miles away, according to the lawsuit. For these trips, she was allegedly required to use her own car and wasn’t paid for mileage or gas.
“Basing employment decisions on the racial preferences of clients, customers, or coworkers constitutes intentional race discrimination” and is “just as unlawful as decisions based on an employer’s own discriminatory preferences,” recent EEOC guidance on DEI states.
Excusing a customer’s racist behavior toward an employee is also unacceptable, the Pincus & Currier law firm noted in a 2022 post. “Failing to step in could lead to a lawsuit, because your employee may feel that you condone racism in the workplace,” the post said.