According to Houston court, manager aced out by DEI gets to jury

Corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are leading to all sorts of trouble for Texas employers. For just one such court case, read on.

Good intentions lead to . . .

Broken Hill Proprietary is an energy company. In 2016 and 2017, DEI lightning struck its HR department: It set out to develop a DEI initiative with the goal of increasing the representation of women in its workforce by 3% annually.

The goal was for the company’s workforce gender composition to match that of the local communities in which the company operated. Its CEO at the time chimed in to say that the goal was to achieve this type of balanced workforce and to set milestones to make this a reality. And because it is only human nature to do what one is incentivized to do, the company considered progress towards the 3% increase in determining the number of annual bonuses.

Guess what? The program worked, and the number of women zoomed up.

. . . Burak Powers losing his job

Burak Powers was the manager of portfolio strategy and development at Broken Hill. His job was allegedly eliminated in a restructuring. But according to him, it was reconstituted under a different title and was given to a woman.

For the next seven months, before his official termination date, Powers applied for other positions at the company but was denied. The positions, however, were given to women. He sued for sex discrimination.

Case goes to a jury