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 NEWSDiscrimination case seeks billions from Microsoft By Margret Johnston January 3, 2001 2:37 pm PT update SEVEN BLACKS HAVE filed a $5 billion race discrimination lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that the company has passed them over for promotions, discriminated against them in hiring and firing practices, and forced them to endure a "plantation-type mentality" at the company.
Ironically, Jackson's case was randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, the same judge who in June ruled against the company in the Department of Justice's antitrust case. Microsoft has appealed Jackson's order that the company be split into two parts. "The world needs to know that Microsoft is not the company that it purports to be. The image is not what it purports to be, and we have a plantation-type mentality when it comes to treating African-American workers at that company," said Willie Gary, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, at a Washington news conference Wednesday. Gary is seeking to have the case certified as a class action on behalf of all blacks who work or have worked at Microsoft. Gary said he and his staff talked to many black and white workers throughout Microsoft to uncover evidence of discrimination. According to that investigation, Microsoft employs about 500 blacks in its workforce, which Gary estimated at between 21,000 and 25,000, and only 83 of its 5,000 managers are black. "Just the numbers is an indication that that company purports to be about America, to be American, but it doesn't look like America," he said. "It gives a lot of credence to many of the allegations that I've heard from my clients in terms of how this company discriminates in hiring practices, discriminates in promotion practices, [and] discriminates in terms of how they evaluate employees." Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan did not return a phone call seeking comment on the allegations, but a statement issued by the company quoted Deborah Willingham, vice president of human resources, saying Microsoft has a zero-tolerance policy toward discrimination in the workplace. "We take any allegations of discrimination very seriously and immediately investigate any concern that is raised," Willingham said in the statement. "Microsoft is 100 percent committed to diversity." Microsoft works actively to recruit, train, and promote minority and women employees and has seen its minority workforce in the United States grow from 16.8 percent in 1997 to 22.1 percent, Willingham said. Microsoft has invested nearly $100 million in recent years to help stimulate interest among minorities and women in scientific and technical fields, including a $86.4 million partnership with the United Negro College Fund. Microsoft is making progress in attracting more minorities and women to the company, but this is a challenging and complex issue across the high-tech industry, Willingham said. Asked about the amount the lawsuit seeks, Gary said $5 billion is "peanuts" for the software giant. Microsoft's annual revenue in the current fiscal year is projected to be about $25 billion, and two weeks ago it announced plans to buy business-software developer Great Plains Software in a $1.1 billion stock-swap deal. "When it comes to sending a message to this company, in America you have to do the right thing, and if you don't, you have to step up to the plate and you have to pay," Gary said. "We just feel within our hearts, we can feel it in our bellies, we know that we are right." Three of the plaintiffs had or have technical job descriptions. Derrick Washington, a former technical specialist in Microsoft's Washington, D.C., office, worked for Microsoft for seven years. He was never promoted, despite having received five of the six certifications in the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer program. "It was a requirement for me, personally, that was put in my statement of work that I needed to have [the certifications]," said Washington after the news conference. He left the company because he said his manager "pretty much said you need to start looking" for another job. Washington said he knew white principal engineers at the company who had not gotten Microsoft certifications. The two other plaintiffs in technical jobs, James Pipkins and Chima Echeruo, are software design engineers. Pipkins is still employed at the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters. Echeruo no longer works for Microsoft. Two other plaintiffs who spoke at the news conference said the treatment they received was hostile and dehumanizing. Jozette Joyner, a former group assistant to a vice president in the Washington, D.C., office, said despite her extensive experience, she was hired into a lower-level position below that of a white man with less experience. Microsoft hired a psychologist to help the group of employees Joyner was in to work with a manager whom Joyner said had "caused us stress from racism," but the employees discovered the psychologist was a friend of the manager. Tanya D. Barbour, a former administrative assistant in Microsoft's Washington, D.C., office, said she was called names, demoralized and humiliated, and told that no matter how hard she worked, she would never be promoted, although white counterparts moved up the ladder. Gary has won multimillion-dollar race discrimination lawsuits against other large U.S. corporations, including Walt Disney and Coca-Cola. He is founder and senior partner of the law firm Gary, Williams, Parenti, Finney, Lewis, McManus, Watson, & Sperando, headquartered in Stuart, Fla. Margret Johnston is a Washington correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate. SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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