Question

Ongaga was an African-American man born in Kenya. He had come to the United States for college in the 1990’s and he became an American citizen in 2015. In 2019, he was hired to supervise the human resources division at the Isaboke Company in Fullerton. The company had over 100 employees and was one of the leading manufacturers of toilet paper in the Western United States. Its business had surged since the run on toilet paper started with COVID-19. The state required that any human resources supervisor for a company with over 100 employees must have at least nine units of college credit in human resources classes. Ongaga had taken a 3-unit class in employment law while earning his MBA at Stanford but no other human resources classes. To avoid this obstacle, Ongaga created a counterfeit college transcript that showed he had fulfilled the 9-unit requirement, and the company did not independently check the facts. During Ongaga’s employment at the company, the CEO (hired after Ongaga) said things to him such as “Trump is trying to make America great again but how are we going to do it with foreigners on the payroll” and “do you know that idiot Barry Obama, he’s from Kenya, too.” One day in early June 2020 (just as the economy was starting to reopen), Ongaga’s ex-girlfriend called the CEO and told him that Ongaga did not have the necessary nine units in college human resources classes. The CEO confronted Ongaga who admitted he had committed fraud to get his job at the company. The CEO then announced: “You are fired. Harakisha (“hurry up” in Swahili) and get your black butt back to Africa before I call immigration.” Ongaga left but he was terribly upset. He felt better when he filed a lawsuit against the company for wrongful employment termination based on Title VII.

a) Identify and discuss the best category of discrimination that could support Ongaga’s Title VII lawsuit against the company.

(b) State whether Ongaga’s termination was due to disparate treatment or disparate impact (two words; the first word will be “disparate”).

(c) Identify and discuss the company’s best defense to Ongaga’s Title VII lawsuit.

Answer 1

Answer a= The best category of discrimination that can be evoked in the given case under Title VII is discrimination on the basis of Race. As per the Title VII, no employee should be discriminated on the job and different other types of employment related opportunities on the basis of gender, race, religion, national origin and so on.

Answer b= If we look at the given case, it is clear that Ongaga’s termination was due to Disparate impact which indicates that the discrimination is the result of unintentional motives. As the plaintiff was fired mainly due to his fake credentials thus there was no intentional discrimination when his boss fired him.

Answer c= As the best defense to the Title VII lawsuit, the company can state that the sole reason for the termination of the plaintiff was based on his fake documents and credentials that were submitted by him to the company. No racial discrimination was made on the basis of his race. He was culprit of submitting the fake documents and it was also accepted by the plaintiff

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