Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security received a partial victory on April 14 in an employment discrimination lawsuit brought by a White employee who claimed she was passed over for three separate promotion opportunities because of her race.
- The plaintiff in Sieger v. Mullin, a cybersecurity specialist at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alleged that an African American agency director selected an African American co-worker for section chief, acting unit chief and unit chief roles despite the co-worker lacking necessary qualifications. She further claimed that DHS subjected her to retaliation and a hostile work environment for reporting discrimination concerns.
- The plaintiff sued for violations of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted DHS’ motion to dismiss the hostile work environment and retaliation claims as well as the plaintiff’s discrimination claim with respect to the section chief position. However, the court allowed the plaintiff to proceed on her discrimination claims for the acting unit chief and unit chief positions.
Dive Insight:
In its analysis, the court scrutinized the manner in which the ICE director filled the acting unit chief and unit chief positions, writing that the former role had been filled without prior announcement of its availability contrary to past agency practice. This effectively denied the plaintiff the ability to express her interest in the role and compete for it, the court wrote.
The plaintiff did apply for the unit chief position, but she alleged that the director altered the hiring process after it had already begun in order to benefit the plaintiff’s co-worker. One such change was to add a second round of interviews, an “unusual” move that also deviated from past ICE practices and allegedly caused members of the interview panel to express uncertainty.
The plaintiff placed ahead of the co-worker during the first round, but the director did not allow the plaintiff to participate in the second round because the plaintiff “lacked important qualifications for the position.” Per the court, this decision came in spite of the fact that the co-worker similarly lacked experience with some duties listed in the vacancy announcement.
Additionally, the plaintiff alleged that an unnamed colleague told her that the director sought to fill the role in a manner similar to that of White male managers at ICE. Namely, the colleague claimed to have heard the director say that such managers “put their guys in whatever positions they want,” according to the court.
The alleged remark — taken in combination with the alleged handling of the selection process — “supports a reasonable and plausible inference that [the plaintiff] was denied the Unit Chief position because of her race,” the court wrote.
Sieger serves as just one example of recent “reverse discrimination” cases filed by majority-group plaintiffs. The lawsuits have received increased attention in recent months thanks in part to a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court decision removing court-imposed barriers on plaintiffs. Federal regulators at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also have pursued reverse discrimination cases, often in the context of cracking down on corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
In a similar lawsuit, a male plaintiff alleged in 2025 that Accenture unlawfully passed him over for a promotion in favor of a less experienced female subordinate as part of the company’s effort to achieve a gender parity goal. Parties to the suit agreed to a joint dismissal of the case last October, according to court documents.