Jaki Nelson, an African-American legal secretary for nearly 18 years at the Jones Day Los Angeles office, claims that her June layoff was pretextual, and was really based on racial discrimination, harassment, retaliation and infliction of emotional distress. Nelson alleges that the Jones Day Los Angeles site employed only a handful of African-American secretaries, many of whom received unfair pay, bonuses, desk assignments and performance evaluations and were essentially treated “like servants”. Nelson also claims that white employees with similar experience were treated with more dignity and received better pay and benefits. Nelson alleges that she was chastised for activities like Internet usage at work, while white support staff also violated these firm policies but were not disciplined. Nelson further describes intra-office sex scandals and alleges that partners in the Los Angeles office fostered racism and used racial slurs and epithets.
Nelson claims that human resources quickly investigated complaints by white employees, but when she complained, human resources ignored her or did not take her seriously and she was treated even worse by her superiors. The lawsuit is scheduled to be heard in August 2011. Jones Day denied the allegations and asserts that Nelson was a difficult employee.
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