Sexual, racial harassment alleged at local insurance company

Employees claim their reports of at least 10 instances of hostile behavior fell on deaf ears

Email | Print By Glenna DeRoy

A Nashville-based insurance company has been accused of retaliation against employees who complained of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.

Asurion Insurance Services Inc. will have to answer for at least 10 offenses that Jamiku Gee and Tommie Banks claim white colleagues committed over the past year, according to the complaint filed Thursday in district court.

The two filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August 2007 after a human resources investigation yielded no results. They received notice of their right to sue the company in January of this year.

Banks was charged with sexual harassment in April 2008 and was fired, but the company would not share details of the complaint against him. The lawsuit – available here – asserts Banks was fired because of his many complaints to HR and the EEOC over the past year.

Gee said in her EEOC charges – available here – that she had been given new responsibilities at work but had not been compensated for those promotions. She noted the men she accused of sexual harassment were allowed to advance.

The two, represented by Tiffany Johnson of The Cochran Firm in Memphis, will ask for an unspecified amount in damages. Johnson was out of town and could not be reached today. Asurion representatives did not return calls for comment.

Banks reported, among other offenses, that co-worker Richard Lee forwarded him a video full of racial slurs that depicted a man dressed in a KKK robe. Several members of the company, including many of his superiors, also had received the e-mail.

Lee had also suggested to Banks that he regularly engaged in criminal activity, telling Banks as he stretched, "Your muscles must be sore from jumping counters and robbing liquor stores," the complaint alleges.

Lee also had lewdly insinuated a sexual relationship between Banks and Gee, which the lawsuit said made both plaintiffs uncomfortable at work.

Gee reported that another co-worker, John Carter, called her a "nappy headed ho" – the same epithet Don Imus used last year to describe the Rutgers University women's basketball team – and touched her inappropriately several times.

A supervisor once excused his behavior to her as symptomatic of a "good ol' boy" mentality, according to the lawsuit.

Asurion's HR department held a mandatory meeting in June 2007 to discuss the use of racial slurs in the workplace, but the complaint reports Carter was not required to attend. At the same time, Banks and two other black employees were told they could not attend the meeting.

Carter was laterally transferred in August and then resigned. The lawsuit does not mention any other disciplinary action taken against Asurion employees.