Seven African American seek unspecified damages over allegations of discrimination at Charleston, S.C. facility.
Shares of Charles River Laboratories are down more than 4 percent this morning after news broke that seven African-American women who work in the company’s Charleston, S.C. facility, have leveled discrimination charges at the contract research organization.
This morning, the Boston Business Journal reported that a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in South Carolina that the company ignored “several discrimination, harassment and retaliation complaints” that had been made by the women over the course of three years. According to the complaint, as reported by the Journal, a white male supervisor made racist comments about black people, denied the women promotions and transfers and also threw furniture. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that Charles River Laboratories failed to keep the complaints confidential and that people who reported incidents of his behavior faced retaliation, the Journal noted.
The article does not specify what damages the women are seeking through the lawsuit.
In a statement to the Boston Business Journal, Charleston River Laboratories said the charges made by the seven women were investigated by both the company and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The company said that neither investigation substantiated the claims made by the women in the lawsuit. Charles River believes there is no merit to the lawsuit, the Journal reported.
The Journal’s report indicates that the man in question was terminated by the company following the EEOC investigation. It does not indicate if it was for the alleged discrimination or for other unspecified reasons. That information about the termination was provided to the Journal by Jennifer Munter Stark, the attorney for the seven women.
David Nauheim, another attorney representing the women, said that even after the termination of the unnamed supervisor, the women felt the company had not “taken serious steps to change the culture and that the culture has not changed.” As an example, Nauheim said the African-American women faced disparate pay and there was a failure to promote black employees. The lawsuit alleges that at the Charleston facility, no black individual has been promoted higher than a “team leader” position. The lawsuit also alleges that another white female supervisor refused to promote one of the black women because of the way she spoke. The Journal reported the lawsuit claims the female supervisor denied the promotion because “she speaks black and that is why I cannot hire her.”
For its part, Charles River Laboratories told the Boston Business Journal that it is “strongly committed to equal employment opportunity.”
