Lawsuit Alleging Racial Discrimination and Retaliation

A lawsuit has recently been made against the Sam Houston State University, claiming that the university is guilty of both racial discrimination and retaliation. The lawsuit was filed within the United States Court in the Southern District of Teas in the middle of January.

An African American woman, Angel Lamb is suing the university stating that they denied her of a raise or a promotion simply because she is African American.  She believes that her race played a major role in the reason why she was never promoted and never received a raise. The former interim direct of the Human Resource department, David White, took his position within the HR department in the beginning of 2009. According to the lawsuit, this is when the racial discrimination first started. Lamb says that she even worked right under the HR Associate Director, Cynthia Bennett.

In the lawsuit, Lamb says, “After White’s promotion, White and Bennett targeted three black HR employees in an effort to get them to quit and ‘cleanse’ the HR department.” Lamb is currently working as an associate within this department and has been employed with the university for two decades.

In the lawsuit, Lamb claims that she often received reviews for her performance at her place of work until White received his promotions. She says after she received her promotion, she received a poor review of her job performance. This took place in February of 2009. The lawsuit says, “This poor review caused her to be denied for a raise, which the white employees at her level received.”

The lawsuit also states that this situation occurred once again in June of 2008 but that every single person received a raise aside from the black (African American) employees. Aside from filing racial discrimination against the university, she also claims that she received retaliation for making complaints about the problem to the supervisor.

In April of 2010, she filed a grievance about not receiving a promotion. After doing so, she received a warning from Bennett. The lawsuit states,”[Lamb] allegedly internally identified the name of a newly hired employee, although there is no known policy regarding this issue.” It also states, “This warning has since been used to further subjugate Lamb and ‘keep her in her place.’ The warning was held over Lamb’s head and she was frequently reminded that, ‘there is consideration of suspension without pay and it is currently under review.'”

Lamb is also suing for damages and the costs that have to do with the lawsuit, including lawyer fees. The university refused to comment and lawyers were not available for comment on the lawsuit either. When officials were asked, they were unaware of the current lawsuit that was taking place and could not comment.