Discrimination in Workplace. The Case Facts. The Case for Employee

Discrimination in the Workplace
Name
Institution Affiliation
Discrimination in the Workplace
Introduction
A case is referred to as prima facie when the plaintiff is supposed to produce sufficient evidence to persuade the judge or jury not to dismiss the case or offer unfavorable directed verdict (Kim, 2006). The plaintiff has a responsibility to produce adequate evidence on all aspects of a particular claim to support it and shift the burden of production of evidence to the defendant. In case the claimant fails to mount a prima facie case, the defendant may beg the court to dismiss or offer a favorable directed verdict without producing any evidence to counter any evidence that may have been presented by the claimant. This is because in a prima facie case, the burden of persuading the jury or the judge always rests with the claimant (Henson, 2015). In this paper, I will present a case of one of my female friends who worked in one of the organizations in the United States, where she was dismissed in what she termed as a discriminatory basis.
The Case Facts
My female friend was working in an organization as a junior accountant from 2004 to 2016. In 2015, the accountant manager in this organization resigned. Nevertheless, the human resource manager, James Whittaker, did not appoint a new accountant manager and rather, divided the position’s responsibilities among various employees working in the accounting department, including the plaintiff. However, after one year, the CEO of the company ordered the hiring of a person to fill the position of the accountant manager. The human resource manager hired an outsider to occupy the position of accountant manager by the name, William Roberts. Also, human resource manager promoted Wayne Johnson from his position as a subordinate in the organization to a newly created position of assistant accountant manager. Finally, James Whittaker dismissed my friend together with other two of her colleagues, but she was later rehired into a different position with similar benefits to the newly created position of assistant accountant manager. Consequently, my friend filed a case in one of the federal courts claiming that she was a victim of sexual discrimination and that organization violated Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Brown, 2014). She claimed that the denial of promotion and dismissal were as a result of sexual discrimination. The gender discrimination issues raised in this case include hiring of William Roberts, as an accountant manager rather than the plaintiff, promotion of Wayne Johnson to fill the newly created position of assistant accountant manager, and a denial of wages equal to her male counterparts between 2015 and 2016 when the accountant manager resigned irrespective of the fact that she was performing similar duties as her male colleagues.
The Case for Employee
The plaintiff presented her case by indicating that the hiring of William Roberts to a position of accountant manager was based on gender rather than qualifications. Based on the fact that the plaintiff had been working with this organization for more than ten years doing all accounting activities, she had sufficient experience to work as an accountant manager. The decision to hire an outside person by Whittaker is gender-based and not qualification-based since the plaintiff had adequate experience and education qualifications. Although she applied for the accountant manager position, the position remained vacant for one year, and it was finally given to an outsider who only applied for the position after CEO pushed for the change. The plaintiff would be considered first when the organization decided to fill the position of the accountant manager, considering that she had worked in the organization for more than ten years and she expressed her interest in that position by making several applications when it was vacant for one year. Moreover, the organization promoted one of the plaintiff’s colleagues, Wayne Johnson, even though they both worked in the same department and the plaintiff had spent more years with the organization than her counterpart. To complicate the matter, when the company decided to reduce the size of the staff, the plaintiff was among the individuals dismissed. It is evident that the refusal of the company to promote plaintiff to assistant accountant manager position was gender-based and the company wanted to place a man in a higher position instead of a woman because in the two occasions when a senior employee was required, she was overlooked. Another point that clearly shows that most of the decisions made by the organization were gender-based is the fact that between 2015 and 2016, men counterparts of plaintiff received higher wages than her even though they all performed similar duties. Between 2015 and 2016 when accountant manager resigned, his duties were divided equally among the junior staff in the department of accounting, but male employees received higher pay than the respondent. The company practiced sexual discrimination in this situation because the labor laws state that pay should be equal for similar duties regardless of qualification, disability, race, social status, and gender. Nothing gives an individual a wage edge over the other so long as they occupy the same position and are performing similar duties to other individuals in an organization. These three points prove that company applied discriminatory practices and they have a case to answer. The fact that there is no female holding any key position in this company suggests that gender discrimination was the cause of the organization rejecting to hire the plaintiff for a position of accountant manager or promote her to assistant accountant manager. Going by the above facts, the plaintiff can make a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII since she has first proven that she belongs to one of the g...