Circuit City Racial Discrimination Suits
Detailed Summary of the Issue
Conspicuously, the Circuit City civil rights suits were filed on behalf of quite a couple of African Americans. The African Americans severely alleged that Circuit City Stores Inc., the enormous retail electronics dealer, was discriminating against the majority of their black employees. Besides, at the time, the present and the former employees accused the Circuit City of failing to lease competent black applicants. Moreover, treating those it did employ unethically by cutting down their salaries or repudiating them advancement in favor of less qualified white employees. Notably, this event of discriminating against the black employees allegedly happened at the stockpiles in peripheral Virginia and Maryland and Circuit City’s control center in Richmond (Robl, 2001).
Mainly, this prompted Mr. Richard L. Sharp, who happened to be the Circuit City’s chair and the chief executive officer, to issue an articulated proclamation depicting that there was devoid of realistic or legal foundations in the existence of such accusations. Besides, Mr. Richard alleged that the organization based its decisions to hire and endorse on the aptitude and the performance. To conclude, the chairman demarcated that Circuit City would dynamically challenge the allegations through the courts.
Consequently, the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which happened to be a non-governmental political rights assemblage and the Washington legal group of Shaw Pittman Potts & Trowbridge cooperatively, filed the detailed allegations in forms of lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt. Precisely, one suit pursued the classification-action eminence on behalf of the possibly thousands of the black employees who either worked in the Circuit City’s Richmond head office or had been deprived of employment there ever since April 1991. Additionally, in the second suit, a total of nine present then and previous employees in Washington area stores contended explicit occurrences of a place of work discrimination on the basis of race. In essence, both suits pursued indefinite compensatory and retaliatory damages.
Luckily, for Circuit City, it managed to drop some of the allegations from the ones that had been presented at commencement. However, some of them happened to be reasonably substantial; hence, they could not be dropped in favor of the organization. Specifically, Renee Lowery and Lisa Peterson were considered the remnant plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by mutually the former and current employees. Apparently, five of those lawsuits were terminated prior to the trial, and in the legal procedures, three of them were terminated for the period the cases were being listened to. The women’s lawyers articulated that the promotion pronouncements at the organizations were delivered based on a disproportionately subjective personnel structure that was deficient of inscribed events and permitted lower-level administrators to endorse employees devoid of robust review.
Analysis of the Ethical Issues Entailed By This Case
In essence, this particular lawsuit entailed quite a couple of ethical issues in it. Remarkably, the facet of ethics serves as a controller to unprejudiced day-to-day living, and it helps persons judge on whether their behavior can be warranted. It also refers to humanity’s sagacity of the appropriate manner of living our day-to-day lives. For precision, the ethical issues, in this case, entailed the following:
- Discrimination
- Failure to offer job opportunities
- Breaches of work contracts
- Unfair upgrades for non-competent individuals
Principally, the aspect of discrimination refers to the undeserved or detrimental handling of diverse groupings of individuals, particularly on the grounds of color, age, or sex (McMunigal & Joy, 2016). Organizations must note that every individual has the privilege to work in an atmosphere devoid of any form of aggravation, intimidation, and discrimination. Regarding this context, the perception was undertaken based on the race. Despondently, the organization intimidated some of its employees who happened to be of a diverse race rather than white. Notably, African Americans faced these predicaments very much.
The other ethical issue was that of failure to be offered appropriate jobs for competent persons. Apparently, one of the issues that the complaints raised was that the African Americans were denied proper jobs that they happened to be competent in. Consequently, the roles were offered to non-competent persons. In essence, this depicted the element of injustice to black persons.
Consequently, there was also a breach of work contracts (McCandless, 2002). It is the legal mandate for any organization to realize it ought to obey any term articulated in the work contract. Fundamentally, a contract of service is a legitimately binding treaty involving an employee and employer. A breach of that precise contract takes place when either the employer or the employee fails to adhere to any of the articulated terms. In this context, the organizations kept on cutting down the black employees’ salaries and earnings. For all intents and purposes, it is imperative to note that not all terms entailed in a precise contract are articulated down. A breach can be in affiliation to a vocally established term, an inscribed term, or an obscure term of a contract.
Lastly, the other ethical issue happened to be unfair upgrades for non-competent individuals. The Circuit City Incl. authorities offered promotions of positions to white employees who could not be considered competent for those positions. Subsequently, this prompted the majority of African Americans to feel reasonably intimidated for the reason that they could not be offered those advanced positions despite their competencies.
A Statement and Defence of My Views of the Issues Entailed the Case
Racial discrimination unquestionably exists still in multiple jurisdictions; the majority of places of work are also not immune to it, as depicted by the Circuit City Incl. Administrators must realize that it is their obligation to avert the aspect of racial discrimination in the diverse places of work and warrant that all employees are dealt with impartially and respectably. In defense of my statement, the following are the primary rationales articulating the significances of curbing racial discrimination:
- To alleviate liability- Fundamentally, the event of confiscating the aspect of discrimination can lessen an organization’s latent obligation for accusations of biased employment practices. Besides, the expenses for legal counsel to defend the organization’s deeds and the settlement expenses can be detrimental to the organization. For that reason, eliminating discrimination is a crucial step in establishing a place of work that appreciates multiplicity.
- Enhancement of employee engagement- It is undoubtedly that workplace discrimination grinds down employee optimism and commitment. A deficiency of employee engagement can be more exorbitant in comparison to a turnover. The elimination of discrimination is vital to nourishing an industrious workforce where workers have confidence in their employers’ valuation of their aptitudes and proficiencies.
- A solution to the recruitment predicaments- The event of a grossing reputation for being an organization that disregards or endures discriminatory occupational acts can rescind the ability of that particular organization in the procedure of job recruitment. Subsequently, the organization ends up attempting to induce applicants to join the organization for lofty-than-market earnings, merely to possibly mislay them when they resolve to quit for the reason of place of work discrimination.
References
Joy, P. A., & McMunigal, K. C. (2016). Racial Discrimination and Jury Selection. Crim. Just., 31, 43. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/cjust31§ion=36
McCandless, K. (2002). Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams: The Debate over Arbitration Agreements in the Employment Context Rages On. Denv. UL Rev., 80, 225. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/denlr80§ion=15
Robl, C. (2001). Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ohjdpr17§ion=15