Former L’Oréal marketing vice president Amanda Johnson has launched a lawsuit against the beauty company alleging racial discrimination, The YBF reports.
The suit states that “Johnson quickly learned the ugly truth about the beauty giant, including witnessing a male executive openly watching pornography during a business meeting; sex-fueled parties at luxury European hotels during work trips; and racist hostility from the highest levels of management,” an excerpt from the suit reads (via DailyMail).
She said she was fired in retaliation for filing a complaint against fellow Vice President Nicolas Krafft, whom she felt physically threatened by. Also in the suit, Johnson described how her boss Rada “host drunken parties, showing favoritism toward young g** male employees, during business trips. One night in Rome, Johnson said Rada told her to ‘go and flirt’ with a group of young male employees and bring them to Rada’s hotel room.”
Rada is also accused of watching pornography during a meeting.
According to the report, Johnson is suing for all earnings she would have received, as well as compensatory and punitive damages. She also wants the company to “be permanently restrained from such workplace violations, that the company makes sure the effects of such violations do not continue to affect her employment opportunities.”
L’Oréal addressed Johnson’s claims in a statement to DailyMail:
“Amanda Johnson was fired for a pattern of unprofessional conduct that surfaced during her final months at the company, including what in our view was abusive and threatening behavior toward colleagues, serious lapses in judgment, and declining performance.”
“After she was let go, Ms. Johnson raised some alarming allegations about her manager and certain co-workers through a lawyer.”
“We took her allegations seriously and investigated them all with great care, as they had not been reported to Human Resources when she was with the company. We interviewed those at the company who would have been in a position to corroborate the alleged behaviors of her manager and co-workers, including those that Ms. Johnson identified as witnesses,” the statement continued.
Johnson’s lawyers fired back at the company:
“L’Oréal’s public response to Ms. Johnson’s complaint shows that the company holds underrepresented minorities to a different standard in all respects. L’Oréal again has wrongfully tried to discredit and punish the victim, an African-American woman, by choosing to accept a false version of events as told by a few white employees on its payroll.
L’Oréal’s so-called ‘investigation’ conducted ‘with great care’ did not even include asking Ms. Johnson for her side of the story.”
