“White guy” case against AT&T can move forward, judge says

A former AT&T employee is suing the telecommunications giant, alleging that the company’s diversity recruitment practices discriminated against him because he is a middle-aged white man.

Joseph DiBenedetto, a Georgia resident who worked for two decades as an assistant vice president in the company’s tax research department, filed a lawsuit on age, gender and race discrimination against AT&T after he was fired in the fall of 2020 His complaint stated that his job was eliminated so that the company could hold senior management positions with people of color.

AT&T challenged the indictment in January. The company told a Georgia judge that the reason DiBenedetto and other white employees were fired was because the company’s financial division, which houses the tax department, was in financial trouble. AT&T asked that the DiBenedetto case be dismissed, but U.S. District Court Judge Mark Cohen for the Northern District of Georgia ruled this week that the case could go ahead.

DiBenedetto’s lawyers told the lawsuit that his client, “a 58-year-old white boy,” spent most of his career at AT&T as a high-performance employee until the company decided he wanted more. people of color in the direction.

“Suddenly, DiBenedetto found itself without the supposed longevity, skin color, and gender that AT&T prefers,” the lawsuit states.

AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.

Organizations should avoid fees

Many U.S. companies tried to increase their job diversity after the assassination of George Floyd in 2020. About 7 percent of AT & T’s senior leaders and 14 percent of its executives are black, respectively, according to the report. Diversity 2020 of the company.

Stewart Schwab, a professor at Cornell University who specializes in labor and labor law, said most corporate diversity hiring policies comply with federal affirmative action laws.

“If you follow a valid affirmative action plan focused on goals rather than quotas, and you’re trying to hire and not fire and you have a certain sense of temporary element, if that’s done, it’s legal,” he said.

Still, the AT&T suit is a reminder that companies need to be careful when enacting diversity policies, Schwab said. The policy must ensure that no employee is discriminated against because of their race, gender, age, and other traits, he said.

DiBenedetto, who started in the AT&T tax department in 2000, was assigned a new supervisor, Gary Johnson, in 2017, according to the lawsuit. After Johnson told DiBenedetto in July 2020 that he planned to retire, DiBenedetto expressed interest in applying for his boss’s job, according to the complaint.

“Johnson told DiBenedetto that he was qualified for the role and that he had to play it, but that he didn’t think DiBenedetto would get the position because he was a big white man and he didn’t have enough ‘track’ in his career.” according to demand.

In that same conversation, Johnson also told DiBenedetto that his age could make it difficult for him to adjust to the position of supervisor.

“In these roles, you know, you have to be able to adapt and move,” Johnson said, according to the suit. “And I’m not saying you can’t, but a 58-year-old white boy. that will happen “.

Under U.S. labor law, organizations cannot fire someone to improve their diversity in the workplace, Schwab said. “He seems to have been told some things carelessly,” he added. “And that person was fired, so that’s a big deal.”