Separate but Equal: Alive and Well at Sodexho
Feature Story by Clayola Brown - 5/19/2004
Brown is director of the Civil Rights Program at UNITE, which represents more than 200,000 apparel, textile, and laundry workers in the United States and Canada. She also sits on the national board of the NAACP.Fifty years ago, Brown v. Board of Education swept the doctrine of "separate but equal" into the dustbin of history. In many ways, the Brown case helped launch the civil rights movement and our half-century-long fight to banish racism from our nation's public institutions.
Yet there is one sector of American society where our movement has not fully penetrated: corporate America. In some companies "separate but equal" is not just alive and well, it's entrenched. One example of lingering segregation is Sodexho, the company that provides food and other services to hospitals, businesses, the military, and our now desegregated public schools.
Sodexho, which is headquartered in France but employs about 120,000 people in North America, is facing potentially the largest racial discrimination lawsuit ever brought involving managerial promotions against a private employer. On Thursday, May 20 -- 50 years and three days after the Brown decision, this lawsuit will have a status hearing that could determine whether 2,600 current and former Sodexho managers get their day in court.
It all started in 2001, when Cynthia McReynolds, an African-American manager at Sodexho, filed a lawsuit, on behalf of her black managerial colleagues, claiming that Sodexho illegally and systematically passes over black managers for promotion in favor of white employees with less seniority or fewer qualifications. The lawsuit also alleges that Sodexho has segregated African-American managers into so-called "black" accounts.
These allegations have stood up to intense scrutiny by a federal judge, who gave the lawsuit class action status in June 2002. In certifying the lawsuit's class status, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, in Washington D.C., determined that the plaintiffs had made a "significant showing" of a "common policy of discrimination" against African-American managers at Sodexho.
Judge Huvelle also cited testimony alleging that one higher-level Sodexho manager said "African Americans were genetically inferior to whites, and genetically most of the criminals in the world were African Americans, and that they didn't deserve promotion.
Testimony by Sodexho executives contains similar revulsions. For example, Sodexho's current Chief Operating Officer in North America, Dick Macedonia, stated in sworn testimony that a white individual referring to black co-workers in the workplace using the "n-word" was not necessarily offensive and could be meant as a "term of endearment. At the time, Macedonia ran Sodexho's health care division.
Racist views at the top of an organization pave the way for racist practices lower down the corporate ladder. As we know, it took George Wallace, with his "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" rhetoric in the Alabama governor's office, to pave the way for Sheriff Bull Connor to sic his attack dogs on peaceful marchers in the 1960s.
For black managers at Sodexho, this top-down racism manifests itself in a throwback to the "separate by equal" days before the Brown case. One employee (too frightened by the racist and retaliatory climate to give his or her name) told a Sodexho consultant how the company isolates managers in "black" accounts such as historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and inner-city school districts:
"We should not isolate HBCU business as we currently do. Why do they need to be separate? ... They (HCBUs) are viewed as lesser quality or inferior accounts. It looks like you only have a chance to be promoted if you are African-American when there is an HCBU or 'urban account' opening. Even the pay scale is unfair. You make less money at an HCBU even though the account is larger.
Sodexho faces a massive potential risk in this case– not just in terms of money, but also in terms of reputation. To boost its image in the eyes of minorities, Sodexho has launched a slick damage control strategy to camouflage the racism allegedly festering beneath the surface. To this end, Sodexho has given to the United Negro College Fund, the Minority Business Roundtable, and many other minority groups in the last few years. Last year, Sodexho's internal "Corporate Diversity Leadership Council" – which is run by, among others, the same executive who called the n-word a "term of endearment" – published a glossy report congratulating the company's "commitment to diversity and inclusion.
As we remember the Brown decision this week, we can point to much progress in the struggle for equality. Fifty years ago, African Americans had few options for management positions in multinational corporations. However, we can never forget that separate is still not equal, and if African Americans cannot rise through the ranks of these corporations, we must continue to protest in the courts and on the streets.
This Thursday, May 20, the case will have a status hearing reviewing, among other things, Sodexho's request for summary judgment. Supporters of the African American managers, galvanized by several civil rights groups, will attend the hearing. Depending on the court's ruling on the summary judgment motion, the case is scheduled to go to trial this November..
