Black woman’s laugh on Zoom sparks racism lawsuit

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A supervisor’s reaction to a Black woman’s laugh at a joke in a Zoom meeting has led to a discrimination lawsuit.

Kerlyne Brun’s time at Adelphi Research started going downhill soon after being hired, a lawsuit filed Jan. 29 in Philadelphia federal court says. She was hired as a project manager in January 2023 but didn’t realize her microphone was on during an online meeting.

She was heard laughing and the next day was asked by director Laura Folkes if she had been “throwing a party.”

“This statement invoked a racially stereotyped assumption that African Americans are unprofessional, lazy and prone to partying,” Brun’s lawsuit says.

Her lawsuit charges Adelphi with race discrimination and retaliation and was filed by Kevin Lovitz of Lovitz Law Firm. Months after the laughing incident, Brun told a company hired to locate doctors in Germany that she needed to “see some movement on the recruits.”

She was told the vendor complained she was rude to it – “Again, Plaintiff was targeted and assumed to have engaged in inappropriate behavior when she did not.”

By November 2023, Brun was told to stop questioning the actions of coworkers. Those employees were white, the suit says, reflecting “differential and disparate standards of treatment” because white coworkers could comment on her work without punishment.

After a coworker cried at work and Brun says she was blamed, she filed a complaint with human resources which led to her work being “overly” scrutinized, the suit says. So she complained to HR about retaliation, which allegedly escalated.

Three days after being put on a 30-day performance improvement plan, she was fired.