Court dismisses bias, retaliation lawsuit

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A man who formerly worked for AmeriHealth Administrators (AHA), a subsidiary of Independence Blue Cross (IBC), has accused the company of racial discrimination, retaliation, defamation, and violation of due process after an alleged inappropriate comment at a diversity training session.  On Nov. 14, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota accepted the defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Anthony Ntamere was an employee at AHA. He was attending a three-day AHA-sponsored training in July 2019 that focused on diversity and inclusion awareness, unconscious bias, and respect. One of presentation leaders, according to Ntamere, called him the N-word.

Unbeknownst to the training leaders, and in violation of company policy, Ntamere recorded the training. Ntamere reported the incident to the general counsel of IBC, then disclosing that he had a recording of the event. Although AHA investigated, they could not corroborate that a slur was used. No other individual present at the talk heard a slur used. The recording was inconclusive. Even the U.S. District Court listened to the recording and did not hear use of the slur.

Because he violated company policy, Ntamere was placed on probation for recording the training. Subsequntly, Ntamere attempted to file a charge with the EEOC. The EEOC closed the file, finding that the evidence did not support a finding of the violation of federal law.

Then, in June 2020, the then-CEO of IBC emailed the company condemning racism. Ntamere said he was bemused by the email given his experience at the workshop. He decided to express his opinions about what he thought the company’s true beliefs regarding racism were on the company’s intranet platform, iWay.

The first posting Ntamere made was “[Company] does not stand against institutional racism or how else would a white male … HR manager feel confident enough to utter the N-word in front of my coworkers … during the training.” Following this posting, the HR director at AHA placed a second probation notice in Ntamere’s employee file.

Two weeks later, Ntamere made a second posting on iWay. “Listening to [the company] talk about racism is like listening to Thomas Jeffrey [sic] advocate the abolition of slavery,” Ntamere wrote. “A sociopath will pee on your leg and say it’s raining.”

He also stated, “Had it not been for the recording of George Floyd being murdered we would have been left with a police report that states his death was caused by medical distress. Before your HR dept makes good on its threat to fire me for refusing to let it be, for my refusal to accept [the company’s] ‘See no evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil,’ culture, let them realize that I still have the 2-minute clip recording plus the entire recording. [Company] is not against anti-black racism, only pretending to be so for the benefit of your IMAGE.”

After Ntamere posted the additional comments on iWay, his employment was terminated by AHA. A year later, Ntamere filed a charge with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

The MDHR found that the iWay postings did not constitute protected authority because neither was a serious attempt to report the allegedly discriminatory treatment. Rather, the MDHR concluded that Ntamere wrote these to “shock his co-workers, target the HR trainer, and embarrass his employer.”

Subsequently, Ntamere brought the lawsuit. Moving to dismiss the lawsuit, the defendants argued that Ntamere failed to state a claim. The court agreed with the defendants and dismissed the complaint.

The court did not find that Ntamere was discriminated against. “When Mr. Ntamere was placed on probation, it was because he violated company policy regarding audio recordings,” the court wrote. “He does not plausibly allege that his supervisors placed him on probation due to his race, but alleges that he was placed on probation for recording a coworker using what he believed was a racial slur.”

Similarly, the court disagreed with Ntamere that his termination was racially motivated. “The documents he submits with his complaint demonstrate that Mr. Ntamere was terminated for non-racially discriminatory reasons, specifically his repeated violations of his company policy and his misuse of the iWay postings,” the court reasoned. “And none of the documents even hint at a racially motivated basis for his discipline or termination.”

Nor did the court find any evidence of retaliation. “Here, even Mr. Ntamere’s allegations themselves demonstrate that he was not disciplined and ultimately terminated for protected workplace activities, but for prohibited conduct like secretly recording his co-workers; using iWay to relitigate an earlier addressed issue; and again, posting such matters on iWay despite being specifically warned against doing so,” the court concluded.