Race discrimination

[jamesandrew]

My girlfriend and her friend work for one of the largest banks in the country, both are white. Her friend is a branch manager and my girlfriend is a personal banker at a different branch. My girlfriend's manager is black and is part of a "diversity" group that the bank promotes. My girlfriend's manager was having a meeting for the group one night after work and my girlfriend asked what the group was about and if she could attend, she was flat out told that she could not attend because she was white. She was totally blown away and was upset because she was being blatantly discriminated against.

My girlfriend's manager and her friend were recently attending a monthly managers meeting and the topic came up about the diversity group. A different manager asked what the definition of diverse was because none of the white managers had been invited to attend this group. My girlfriend's manager turned to the HR person in attendance and asked what she should say and the HR rep told her to go ahead and say what she wanted. So she proceeded to walk up to every manager in the room who was not white and pointed to them individually and would say that they were diverse. Needless to say she left out every white manager in the meeting which left my girlfriend's friend feeling angry and discriminated against. They are both angry about this blatant discrimination and want to know what kind of options they have legally.

 

[Green_Hornet]

Your girlfriend should be given access to the diversity group. However what goes on at these meetings such as the incident you described is why they have diversity meetings, to hash out these type of misconceptions. You can not have a diversity group of all : female, black, white ,etc,etc. Some people take on these voluntary positions to get a free half day off from work or pad their resume, then there are others that take it serious. If your girlfriend feels it is worth taking serious she should keep attending if for no other reason than to straighten out these ignoramuses.

As far as a legal recourse possibly there could be one if she is not entitled the same deference to membership as the minority employees. So she should tell H.R she wants on the group because it looks like its nothing but a lets get even with whitey convention in it current make up.