Trial for SHRM race discrimination case set to begin

Sponsored by

Your HR HQ: Equifax offers integrated tools designed to manage HR in complex organizations. Simplify processes, help ensure compliance, and improve the entire employee life-cycle experience. Check it out.

A trial is set to begin on Dec. 1 in a case alleging that the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) engaged in racial discrimination and retaliation against a former employee.

In the case, Mohamed v. Society for Human Resource Management, Rehab Mohamed alleges her former employer terminated her from her role as a senior instructional designer after she lodged a complaint against her supervisor, whom she claimed treated her differently than her white colleagues.

Mohamed worked for SHRM from 2016 to 2020. She filed the lawsuit back in October 2022.

Mohamed, a “brown-skinned Egyptian Arab woman,” claimed in a civil complaint her manager on the instructional design team “systematically favored white employees” over non-white direct reports. After Mohamed reported issues to leadership, she alleges the org began “setting her up to be fired within weeks,” according to the complaint.

Mohamed even met with SHRM’s president and CEO, Johnny C. Taylor, ahead of her termination, according to court documents.

Mohamed was fired on Sept. 1, 2020.

In SHRM’s response to the civil complaint, it alleges that Mohamed “received counseling for performance issues related to her communication with her supervisor, her untimeliness of meeting deadlines, and her failure to complete two large projects, which resulted in her termination of employment” and denied the charges in the lawsuit.

A Colorado federal judge, Gordon P. Gallagher, rejected SHRM request for summary judgement, and sent the “messy employment discrimination case” to a jury trial.

That SHRM? Yes. That SHRM. The employment lawsuit was filed against one of the country’s “leading experts in human resources’ best practices.” The judge noted in his judgement, “Defendant is a HR membership organization that trains people on how to do HR tasks.”

SHRM provides thought leadership, training materials, and resources to HR leaders and professionals all across the globe on best HR practices and policies, including performance management, HR investigations, and retaliation.

But the “trusted authority on all things work” is—at the end of the day—also an employer, and being an expert in the people profession doesn’t exempt you from litigation.

What’s at issue? According to court documents, the judge concluded a jury should adjudicate some of the facts in the wrongful termination and discrimination case, including about Mohammed’s performance reviews ahead of her termination, the timing of her termination in relation to the complaint of discrimination based on race she filed, and Mohammed’s manager’s treatment of her and her fellow colleagues who were white.

“It is relatively straightforward to form a narrative from the disputed and undisputed facts showing discrimination and retaliation caused Mohamed to be terminated,” according to the judgement.

The facts of the case will assess Mohamed’s claims that her supervisor micromanaged her work, including requesting to review Mohamed’s email communications and attend all meetings with her and vendors, withheld professional opportunities from Mohamed, and “unjustifiably” criticized her work differing from her management of white colleagues.

Also at issue are the project deadlines SHRM alleged she failed to meet. Mohamed's contends these were arbitrary and used as pretext for an eventual dismissal, which occurred weeks later. Her colleagues testified ahead of trial that “[n]ot once during my employment with [Defendant] did I ever meet the target completion deadline for a major project [and] was never disciplined or coached for missing a deadline.”

Mohamed complained to her manager’s supervisor in June 2020, setting off the chain of events that ended with the lawsuit. A subsequent investigation into both her complaints and performance occurred around the same time, according to court documents.

“This precise scenario is perhaps or even likely not what occurred, and the Court makes no such finding,” the judge ruled. “But there are undisputed facts, admissible evidence, or reasonable inference supporting each point. The Court finds that a reasonable jury could conclude that Defendant discriminated and retaliated against Mohamed.”

Mohamed is also entitled to punitive damages under Title VII if her employer is found to have engaged in discriminatory practices “with malice or with reckless indifference to [her] federally protected rights,” according to the court’s findings.