2/19/02 EA.com Discrimination Complaint

Fatbabies.com has obtained a copy of a complaint that has been sent to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission due to sexist and racist behavior of Electronic Arts at the former subsidiary EA.com.  Shocked?  We certainly are.  Read on...
 

In response to the complaints of former Black, White and Women employees and the action and behaviors of the staff and management at Electronic Arts/EA.com of 547 Old Lynchburg Road, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903. Electronic Arts knowingly and willingly violated both State and Federal Civil Rights Law. Electronic Arts sought to usurp civil rights law by closing or modifying its Virginia operations so as to eliminate the opportunity for the former employees to lawfully seek legal redress of their grievances.

EA/EA.com violated Sec. VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title 42 and, Chapter 21, Subchapter VI, Sec 2000e-3 Sec. 2000e-2. - Unlawful employment practices under US Federal Code and, or corresponding California and Virginia State Code.

(a) Employer practices- It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer –

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

This is applicable to racial discrimination, where other factors, such as "reasonable accommodation" are at issue. Electronic Arts/EA.com did at no time take reasonable accommodation to prevent racial discrimination at the subsidiary EA.com. Electronic Arts employing members of a “protected class” took no action to ensure that the applicable civil rights of said protected classes were free from discrimination.  The facts of this complaint, and any subsequent complaints to the applicable agencies, organizations, or appropriate state or federal courts will show that adverse employment action was taken by EA.com employees with the knowledge and approval, implicit or explicit of Electronic Arts Inc. management.

The adverse employment action Electronic Arts took which affected black employee's jobs had gross and deleterious effects on the performance of Black employees. Electronic Arts did nothing to prevent this behavior, in fact under the direction of Randall Crane, a company director now based in Austin Texas, this behavior was essentially rewarded as the offending employees were given opportunity and ability to re-offend. Electronic Arts/EA.com employees engaged in personal attacks, made unwarranted threats of termination based on race, unfair and racially motivated public and private criticism of Black employees work performance, refusal to speak to, train, and work with Black employees on equal terms as white employees.  In establishing pretext there can be no legitimate reason for Electronic Arts’ disparate treatment. The actions of Electronic Arts/EA.com were racially motivated and had disparate impact on the workplace environment. Racist remarks and jokes were often part of the EA.com environment for Black employees, and Electronic Arts management permitted these actions by lower level management and staff.

During the entire calendar year 2001 and prior all Black and female employees previously employed with EA.com or Fox Staffing in the Technical Support Department were systematically discriminated against by one or more Electronic Arts employees resulting in severe emotional distress, lower work performance, and physical and psychological damage and loss of financial compensation both past and present.  The failure of Electronic Arts and its agents, Richard Gieger, Randall Crane, Angelina Halstead, Hap Campbell, and Timothy Richardson to appropriately supervise Samuel Northington and John Torrey of the EA.com Technical Support Department created an illegal, discriminatory, racially biased, gender biased, and inappropriate “hostile” workplace environment. Furthermore, EA/EA.com through Angelina Halstead, Richard Gieger, and Randall Crane EA/EA.com admitted negligence and culpability but took no direct actions to relieve the injured parties.

The following letter is a partially excerpted copy of an anonymous document that was sent to Electronic Arts Senior Management. This document was delivered via US Postal Service Overnight Mail in January 2001. Based on other illegal behavior by Electronic Arts management and showing prior knowledge of departmental problems, and Electronic Arts inaction towards these racial and gender bias discrimination problems.

 “I am writing this letter to strongly voice a complaint as to the highly inappropriate and unprofessional behaviors of several lower level management persons in technical support and general support departments at EA.com. I must apologize for writing this letter anonymously, however I am in desperate fear because of the threat of managerial retribution of my omplaint

 On the weekend of January 14, 2000 a “mash potato” wrestling match in inappropriate clothing was held at a local establishment named Trax in Charlottesville. It was at this match that two female participants who were EA employees were participants. One participant was Jennifer Normant an administrative manager. Male and only male EA employees were invited and pictures and videos were taken and openly distributed on EA computer networks during working hours! As a woman, and as an EA employee I was highly offended and insulted. While an open, relaxed, and liberal environment is part of the benefit of EA.com for “selected” employees it is very disturbing that this was knowingly allowed to occur. To voluntarily objectify yourself as these women did, sexualize the workplace to the detriment of other women who are not as physically attractive, and then hold male coworkers to a different legal standards based on personal friendships and animosities simultaneously using this method to advance yourself in the workplace is not only unethical, but in this case illegal.  Using social events as defacto EA events and inviting selected groups of people based on gender, social, and racially biased standards is a violation of the law and “actionable” under both US and Virginia State Code. Furthermore, because of my race and gender I have been permitted to be witness to racially derogatory statements, extremely biased treatment, and inexcusable favoritism based on race, gender.

In addition to this objectionable, unprofessional, and grossly subjective behavior a disturbing pattern of gender bias, race bias, and disabilities biased favoritism, promotion, and even antagonism towards certain minority members of the EA team who are outside the “social” circle of several individuals in the Technical Support Department has emerged as the method of professional advancement. It should be noted that it is not the entire department by any means, but several management individuals who by insisting on creating an environment that is detrimental to the technical support department are placing EA.com in danger of more serious legal action. This is clearly evident in the high turnover rates of certain teams and team leaders and should be immediately addressed. Whether the discriminatory behavior has occurred because of gender bias, race bias, or personal disability your department immediately should address it. I have written this letter as a woman and as a concerned EA employee who only wants to see the department be successful and to participate in its success. However, should your department chose to ignore this letter, I will be forced to pursue further remedy through higher EA officials, outside legal council, the news media, and other appropriate actions”

I was hired and began my training in October of 2000. When I began my training Warren Pannill was my supervisor. Based on my previous experience and expectations I would rate my general training experience as poor. This is not due to Mr. Pannill it was due to the lack of direction and the demands made on Mr. Pannill’s time as a supervisor of his own group of CSR’s. I was told that Sam Northington would be my Lead and in charge of my general training. The following day on Saturday 4, November 2000 while in the office I had my first professional experience with Mr. Northington. I found him to be dismissive, arrogant, and highly unprofessional. I attempted to introduce myself to Mr. Northington and the following is a transcript of the exchange.

I walked to Sam’s desk extended my hand and said, “Hello Sam I’m John, I’ll be working with you beginning on Monday, I’m looking forward to it”

He said, “Yeah whatever”, and then said “what do you know?” He refused to shake my hand.

I was slightly taken aback by this behavior I said, “Well uh, at this point I haven’t really been shown….”

Sam then went on to berate me in front of the staff members that were there in the office asking how I could be in training for a whole week and not know anything. He then went into a further criticism about Warren saying that he was unfit to be a supervisor, and he should not be in charge of training. When another employee, named Chris Showalter came to ask Mr. Northington a question he began to berate him also and criticize and fault Mr. Pannill again. Based on previous experience in a corporate environment I thought that Mr. Northington was either deliberately unprofessional or simply poorly trained. Nevertheless I saw his behavior as a bad introduction to Electronic Arts.
 

My first week of training with Sam Northington could only be classified as the worst corporate training I have ever received. Mr. Northington was not loud or aggressive, but he was consistently discriminatory, demeaning, and degrading towards me in front of other staff members. Mr. Northington showed this behavior towards other employees regardless of race and the EA management was aware of this because other employees made this known to me throughout my employment at Electronic Arts.

He refused to answer questions about direct work related issues, consistently made demeaning or degrading comments to employees, and furthermore made negative remarks about Warren Pannill. Because of previous legal experience I began to keep a diary of Mr. Worthington’s behavior.

I was very aware that I did not want to be overly sensitive to his actions and slander someone by making false accusations of discrimination and I began to question other employees about Mr. Northington. White or Black gave me the same response of Sam Northington, he was generally rude or insensitive, and he was worse to Black employees.

When I began training I noticed that Mr. Northington could not refrain from making degrading or demoralizing remarks towards myself. It was highly insulting and emotionally debilitating to have him talk down to me and question each and every action that I took at all times. Mr. Northington deferred my training to Ryan Beach, a second level technical support specialist. His exact quote was,

“You can ask Ryan anything, he is very good and he does everything right.”

This is critical because when I did practice emails Mr. Northington would constantly criticize me and say that my responses were wrong and that I would be fired if management saw these responses. The fact about this was I never sent out any responses without Ryan Beach’s approval. Additionally, When I would send out standard responses that were department approved and in the EAVA outpost database Mr. Northington would tell me that I was incorrect. This was despite the fact that the responses of the same white employees were correct. As a side to my start at EA.com Mr. Northington said that I was required to attend a “meet and eat” meeting session. It was not a “All Hands” meeting where employees are required to attend just a departmental meeting when everyone who is working that day attend. I was told that I have to attend even though it meant that I had come to work for a 20-minute meeting on my day off after working until midnight the previous evening. When I attended the meeting there was no one else from either the 6pm-3am shifts or the 3pm-12am shifts in attendance. It had not been required and Mr. Northington had simply misinformed me as to the whether I really needed to come. This pattern of oversight on his part began to turn into a pattern of deception; lies and inference of black inferiority continued unabated and has continued for the entire tenure of my employment with EA.com.

It is commonly accepted by 100% of the interviewed CSR’s that Mr. Northington would be the single largest contributor to a negative and hostile workplace environment for all employees regardless of color or gender.

There was no set policy for training, and absolutely no oversight of the training. Mr. Northington took advantage of this lack corporate oversight to discriminate against employees. This discrimination in my case appears to be racially motivated.

When I began my employment in October the computer that was I using was not performing properly. I informed Mr. Northington, and he refused to investigate the situation until I informed Management of the problem. Furthermore Mr. Northington told me a lie and said that the policy of Electronic Arts would not allow him to upgrade my computer. Management’s immediate response was that was not correct. I received a new computer within 5 minutes of my notifying on site EA management.

CSR’s were generally required to work with a more senior person for several days and do about 50-100 practice emails in a 5-day time span. Mr. Northington demanded that I do almost 400 emails over a 2 ½ week period, and I was not allowed to work independently for three weeks until I finally I spoke to a supervisor of Mr. Northington requesting that I was ready to work on a live basis on my own. This only happened because I requested that management intervene in my behalf.  Mr. Northington did everything that he could within his power to undermine my EA knowledge development and self esteem in front of my team members and management. His actions were seen by other team members and noted by myself. He even attempted to go to other EA employees and spread rumors to undermine people’s opinion of my work ethic and professional demeanor. Management took no action to about his behavior or restrict possible damage of his actions.

During a department meeting we were asked to assist in develop ideas to help with department performance. At this meeting I and another CSR came up with the White Board Committee. This idea was generated out of a need to have better department communication and training. When I came in on my day off Mr. Northington was talking about me in a highly derogatory and demeaning light because he did not know I was sitting there. Mr. Northington did not know I was in the office because I was out of his sightline but within hearing distance.

He made comments to Tracy Bedsole, a White employee, “Who does John think he is criticizing the training process and I can’t believe that he thinks he has the right to have an opinion”. I was sitting right there when he made the comments and this was not hearsay. When I immediately confronted Mr. Northington about his behavior he lied to me and told he didn’t say anything.  All incidents in this document where observed or heard by myself. Mr. Northington only criticized the training process when Warren Pannill, a Black employee was involved. Mr. Northington never criticized any white employees his equal or better. He saved his criticism only for employees lower than himself and Black people and Women. When I approached Mr. Northington about this he looked directly at me and lied and said he didn’t say anything. This was typical of his behavior whenever he was caught behaving in a professionally inappropriate manner.

Never at any time did I make any comments about Mr. Northington’s behavior to management because I wanted to view his behavior and rhetoric in context of the everyday workplace. On Wednesday November the 22nd was the beginning of my belief that Mr. Worthington’s actions were indeed racially motivated. At approximated 4:10 pm Mr. Northington was walking by my desk. He stopped by Natasha Jacobs’s desk (a Black Women employee) and he said,

“Hey Natasha is Diablo still spreading his Ebola Monkey virus around?”

I was shocked and offended since Diallo Camera was a Black employee who left EA under rather strained circumstances several months later. This comment was made in my presence with no contextual references. Even should there be contextual references made it in no way could it be considered an appropriate office reference to be made about a Black employee. As a black employee who with literally 20 years of experience at jobs of varying degrees of responsibility I have never had someone make that kind of remark in my presence. It felt as personally degrading as anything I have ever experienced in my professional life.

Mr. Northington displayed a consistent pattern of speaking negatively about black employees behind their backs in order to downgrade them in the eyes of management. I have numerous examples of this to which I was a witness to this behavior because Mr. Northington was not aware that I was listening or in the vicinity to hear or see is behavior. His consistent demeaning comments were so bad and EA Managements lack of responsiveness to this issue so complete that Black employees felt their only option was to look for other work. No amount of diversity training will benefit Mr. Northington and his attitude towards all employees especially Black employees.

On Tuesday the 11th of December I was not able to access Octane, our primary email tool. I informed Mr. Northington of this problem. He did not respond and I could not work for several hours. He told Ed Watson that I forgot my password and that it needed to be reset. It was reset and it worked for a day. I came back and the password did not work. When Sam could not get me access to my computer again he went to Ed Watson again and made up lie saying that I forgot my Octane password. So Mr. Northington and Mr. Watson ridiculed me remembering my password. They gave me the password “forgot” instead of investigating the issue. Again Mr. Worthington’s insidious pattern of undermining people’s confidence in Black employees comes to the surface. When the password problem came up immediately again I looked into the matter. What I discovered was that with the network protocol that existed I needed to renew my Windows password every 60 days or so. If not then all my passwords would be reset if I did not do so. I had not been told the at anytime in my training and if Mr. Northington had reviewed this with me it could have been taken care appropriately and I would not have been ridiculed in the office as being forgetful or inattentive. This is critical because this was Mr. Northington's general approach to training of all persons, and was worse for Black employees, those lower than him, and Women. It is logical that Mr. Northington’s psychological abuse of employees in general could be extended quite logically to Black people.

Over the next few weeks and months I was forced to leave Mr. Northington’s shift due to personal problems unrelated to the hostile working environment on his team.  Mr. Northington’s lack of personal control over his professional demeanor sometimes extended to his team. In the first week of February I was in the office on personal time. One of Mr. Northington’s favorite employees, James Weiss used the Internet to locate some inappropriate material and show a preview of said material in the office.

Mr. Weiss invited the whole team over to watch the sketch. He made a special point of inviting me over saying, “Hey John you’ll like this!” It was a video of a Japanese Comedy sketch making parody of these people calling each other Nigger. The “N-word” was repeated at least ½ dozen times in the sketch and it was without a doubt the most degrading and offensive incident that I have ever been subjected to in my employment history, that includes part-time professional and volunteer work since I began working at the age of 13 years old. I simply walked away in shock and said that’s not funny.

Mr. Northington did not admonish nor chastises Mr. Weiss he only said,

“That’s not appropriate for the office”

Mr. Weiss said, “It’s just a joke”

Mr. Worthington’s response was, “Hey man it’s not me man its corporate, I’ve got no problem with it”

The nature of the office environment requires that a common sense approach to political correctness and professionalism be maintained at all times especially in where legal exposure is significant. Missteps and erroneous comments are made regularly in today’s workplace that fact is unavoidable. It requires that we look at these issues on an individual basis, yet some events are not gray area. The use of the word nigger for the purpose of entertainment for white people at the personal and emotional expense of a Black employee is not a “judgment” call. It is illegal, unprofessional, and unethical in every sense of the word. As manner of reaction I did not confront any of the persons involved. In fact I thought it best that I give myself time to cool off and see if either Mr. Weiss or Mr. Northington would simply rethink the incident and come to me and apologize. Neither of them did and I was forced to refer the matter to a management person. While I was promised that the matter would be investigated and resolved, it never was and I began to question whether Electronic Arts was serious about adhering to any law protecting against workplace discrimination.

This however is not the end of Mr. Worthington’s involvement with questionable employment practices. Over the next weeks I was witness to Mr. Northington make negative remarks or attempt to imply that both Ari Ugwu, a black second level technical service support representative, and Warren Pannill were both unprofessional and had engaged in unprofessional behavior of some sort. Since I know both persons and I heard Mr. Northington’s comments about them I felt obliged to refer the matter to both persons, but nothing has been done since it appears EAVA management simply refused to discipline Mr. Northington about this incident.

The incident involving Mr. Ugwu involved Mr. Northington listening to a phone message that Mr. Ugwu had left involving an accident Mr. Ugwu’s mother had been involved in. When Mr. Ugwu had left a message for Mr. Northington he had for some reason doubted the validity of the message. He proceeded to play the message for the all the department leads, saying, “It doesn’t sound like an emergency to me!” Laughing while he did this obviously attempting to cast dispersions on Mr. Ugwu’s character. Additionally, the nature of the message was of a personal nature and Mr. Northington was playing the message openly so that anyone in the office within hearing distance could hear it. At best this is highly unprofessional As a witness to this behavior I was quite intrigued as to why Mr. Northington doesn’t take the same manner of behavior with white employees.

On Tuesday, 8 August I was in the office again on personal business at approximately 10:47 p.m. Mr. Northington was also in the office managing his team. One of his new team members made a comment about a technical issue. Mr. Northington’s response to his new staff member’s comments was, “Well, you came from Warrens team I wouldn’t expect you to know anything.”

This is a perfect example of everyday commentary of Mr. Northington about Warren Pannill. It was a weekly, almost daily occurrence in his day-to-day activities. The most disturbing fact of this behavior is that Mr. Northington shows an almost pathological ability to invent himself when supervisors are around and furthermore a complete willingness to lie when he sees that is necessary to do so.

Based on discussions with Hap Campbell regarding these incidents I decided to begin investigating the possibility of seeking other employment should EA continue its failure to uphold the law. I was told that they would happily give me an employment reference on EA.com letterhead and that was not a problem because I was a top performer. I was denied that request by the EA.com human resources department based on legality, but my complaints about racially derogatory humor and racially bias treatment in the workplace have gone unanswered and uninvestigated. At best this is highly suspicious as to why EA.com would be so precise about one aspect of its human resource policy and so negligent about others.

A clear and negative pattern has existed with regards to Mr. Northington and his treatment of Black Employees. Based on the discussion of all of the Black employees, a clear majority of the white employees within the department his behavior is a clear cut negative that can in no way be beneficial to the department morale or atmosphere. He has been placed on probation, warned by management, and been advised by Human resources.

After filing my original complaint via Richard Gieger at Electronic Arts the offending parties were not punished and were given adjacent positions at the same pay and status. In a brief telephone conversation in May after I filed my complaint Mr. Gieger even went as far as promising me that the illegal actions would stop and that EA would resolve this matter. Electronic arts did almost nothing in response to this matter.  In fact it has been reported that John Torrey, Hap Campbell, and Aaron Blum were given a new positions with Electronic Arts in Austin Texas working under their previous supervisor Randall Crane.

 Angelina Halstead the human rights coordinator for EA.com took 3 weeks to answer my complaint. Ms Halstead admitted culpability and apologized for the actions of John Torrey and Samuel Northington, but she told me there was no evidence of racial discrimination and the case was closed. After the incident was concluded the same management that was in place returned to the previous pattern of discriminatory behavior. They were given adjacent positions to the department and they essentially changed the entire department structure to placate the lack of management oversight and ability. They retaliated against myself and other employees by investigating, ignoring, or overly scrutinizing employee performance.

One supervisory employee, Tim Richardson even filed false accusations of “inappropriate” remarks after monitoring an incoming personal telephone conversation in a retaliatory response to my complaint. Mr. Richardson also refused to speak to me after I filed my complaint even though I attempted to speak with him approximately 4-6 times in 12 months about Sam Northington and John Torrey, and gave EA ample opportunity to adequately alleviate the problem and they did not.  It should be noted that Mr. Richardson did not take action with any other employees except myself because I filed my discrimination complaint, and it was the plan of Technical Support Supervisors to punish anyone who filed a complaint.

After my complaint had been filed an EA attorney in HR came to Charlottesville to lecture management employees on workplace bias. The attorney in question failed to discuss racial bias, and when the attorney was asked about EA’s legal opinion of 4th Circuit positions on racial discrimination she refused to answer.  Most telling how hostile the environment at EA in Virginia was that after the lecture two managers were discussing the scheduling of a meeting.

When one manager asked whether the timing was appropriate the respondent, who was white, said,

“That’s mighty white of you”.

I did not report this incident to management because it was clear that Electronic Arts management was not going enforce civil rights law, was not going to protect minority or women employees, and was going to take any action possible to obfuscate the truth about its division in Virginia. Due to Ms. Halsteads personal relationships with various EA employees she did not perform her duties as the law dictated but as she was instructed by senior EA management to do so as to protect the interest of Electronic Arts without regards to civil rights law.  This incident occurred days after the so-called bias lecture. At this point I realized that I could no longer remain at Electronic Arts and gave my notice due to a racially hostile atmosphere. There was no real response to my or other employee’s complaints of racial discrimination or of hostile workplace environment.  Rick Gieger did no follow up on the matter and Angelina Halstead totally swept the incident aside providing no support or alternatives to the offended parties. However, both Mr. Gieger and Ms Halstead did admit guilt and culpability for the actions and behaviors of the offending parties. In conclusion EA has categorically failed in its responsibility to abide by Federal Civil Rights Law.  It is the intention of this party to pursue further legal action unless Electronic Arts expresses a desire to avoid litigation over its violation of Federal and State Civil Rights Law.

Under State and Federal Law, if the employer has fired the employee (or if the employee has been forced to leave or was never given the job) because of discrimination or harassment, the employee can recover (sue) for the following:

1. Past lost wages.
2. Other past benefits. (example: car allowance).
3. Future Lost Wages and Benefits. (the amount of wages and benefits that will be lost in the future). However, see "Mitigation", below.
4. General Damages. This includes emotional distress and pain and suffering.
5. Punitive Damages. This is an amount of money designed to punish the employer and make an example of him.
6. Attorneys Fees and Costs. This is what the employee spent on lawyers to sue the employer.

In conclusion Electronic Arts has shown no reasonable effort at anytime during my personal tenure to protect the rights of the Black and or Women employees of the Technical Support Department of EA.com in Charlottesville VA. Electronic Arts has failed regardless of intent to abide by the law. This failure has resulted in the substantial personal and professional damages to the offended parties. John Riccitello, appearing before the EA.com staff in Charlottesville in the spring of 2001 stated, “Electronic Arts is a good company and we do the right thing”. Defending racist and sexist policy is not the right thing and Electronic Arts should endeavor to right its past wrongs.
 

-FatFatterFattest
 
 

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