In today’s business world, prejudice and discrimination is undesirable, intolerable and illegal. For that reason, laws have been established to prevent the “unfavorable or unfair treatment due to the race, religion, national origin, disabled or veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.” (Understanding Workplace Discrimination, 2011.) Discrimination in the workplace is prevented in many aspects of the environment including recruiting, filling positions, assessing job performance, standards pertaining to promotion, training of employees, salaries as well as disciplinary practices. This paper will discuss the numerous and flagrant violations of antidiscrimination laws presented in the case study of the Darius D’amore Fragrances, Inc. and the lawsuit filed against it by three of its employees on the basis of racial, gender, and disability discrimination.

It is hard to believe, in these times, that any of the reputable company, business or professional setting would continually violate its own policies regarding hiring from within whenever possible, as well as providing its employees and applicants with “equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.” Its own standards of conduct list examples of forbidden behavior including racial or ethnic slurs, and guarantee the provision of reasonable accommodation consistent with the law to qualified employees and applicants with a disability (Darius D’amore, 2004.) The case example is replete with instances in which the company violated its own principles of ethical, professional, and legal behavior in relation to the three employees who filed the lawsuit: Rich Rogers, Les Ford, and Jasmine Young.

In the case of Rich Rogers, the employee who was battling stage 4 lung cancer, over a period of several years, he was passed over for promotion despite the fact that he was well-qualified both educationally, holding an MBA, as well as experientially, given his years of employment with the company and the many roles he had performed for Darius D’amore. His treatment was a clear, constant display of disability discrimination, which is defined as the treatment of an individual differently in the workplace because of his or her disability, perceived disability, or association with an individual with a disability (Disability Discrimination, 2008.)

Such discrimination can take the form of differential treatment in all aspects of the life of the company including firing, hiring, promotions, and other areas that specifically affected Mr. Rogers. After disclosing his illness only because he was forced to take a two-month leave to receive medical treatment, Mr. Rogers applied for many of his company’s openings that would have resulted in promotions, and was not hired for any of them. He was actually told by the head of his division, Kevin Simmons, that “no matter how hard he worked, he would never be promoted.” To add insult to injury, as well is to underscore that he was being discriminated against, Mr. Rogers was actually asked to train the people that were hired to fill the positions for which he had applied. In addition to that insult, the company also violated its own policy that required them to hire from within if qualified candidates existed, only going outside the departments if there were no such candidates already working in those sections. While he was on medical leave, Mr. Rogers was notified that two positions for which he had applied and which would have resulted in increased pay and status had been filled with two people from outside the department.

Other employees at the company were also aware of the discrimination against Mr. Rogers because of his disability, one of them commenting after he had been passed over for promotion “Rogers was devastated because if he was not qualified, why was it his responsibility to train (the two people who were hired)?” Making matters worse, other employees heard Kevin Simmons, the Vice President of the Financial Administration Department, say “He (Rogers) is a dead man and wouldn’t return to work.” It is unimaginable that any person could be as insensitive and, quite frankly, ignorant of the potential liability of making such a remark to other people in the company, who would certainly be witnesses to support the civil suit against the company whenever it came to trial.

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