Legal Question in Employment Law in New Jersey

I worked for this company for 4.5 years on a part time basis. Today I received a notice thru email that I was being terminated for making inappropriate race and gender statements to a client. She stated that I told the client to leave the ghetto mentality in the street and act like white people in her home. this is not true, I was telling the client a story about my upbringing as a way to get her to understand the situation. What I said was " in my home my grandmothers always said that we had to leave the ghetto on the door step before coming in the house and we had to act like white people and show respect" she took what I said and twisted my statement. She did not discuss this with me she just wrote up this termination letter and sent it. In all of the years that I have worked there I have never received a complaint or write up or even a verbal warning for the work I did. I live in new jersey an at will state, do I have any legal rights? Is there any claim for defamation of character? Is there any breach of good faith and fair hearing? Being that I was a long term employee shouldn't I been given the right to face my accuser? Do I have any legal leg to stand on?�


Asked on 11/10/10, 3:44 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Locksley Wade Law Office of Locksley O. Wade

The answer to all of your questions is no. It seem that the moral of the story about your grandmother was that a person of color should act "white" or conversely, a person of color shows no respect. What it seems to say is that the standards of "white" people is the standard that a person of color or one who lives in the ghetto is the standard that one should strive to achieve. It seems that you and your grandmother were favoring one race over another. This kind of thinking is from the last century and does not belong in the 21st century. You can certainly file a complaint with the Attorney General's Office of Civil Rights but I seriously doubt that you will achieve a favorably outcome.

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Answered on 11/15/10, 4:32 am


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