Harrasment and/or discrimination due to race, gender or disability?

I went to my interviews when I was 9 months pregnant. I have informed them that I had a particular accent because English was my second language. I also disclosed that I have ADHD but that did not interfere with my job duties on my previous job, I needed a little longer time to perform my duties.
By the time I was offered the job, my baby was already born. They informed that they would like me to start on this date ----, when my baby was only 3 weeks old. I had to agree with it since I did not want to lose that opportunity. I informed them that I was breastfeeding so I needed a clean place for me to pump.
I had 15 minutes break in the morning and in the afternoon, and an hour lunch. Those breaks I usually pumped, but it usually took me about 25 minutes to pump and wash the pump after all.
About 3 months after I started I had my first evaluation, where I did meet 2 of 4 requirements. My supervisor kept indicating that I had trouble engaging in conversations with the clients and that I should not do quiet pauses when talking to the clients. I have tell them several times that they way that I talk in English is much paused and I need to think before I talk. I have tell them that with experience I might get faster but there is nothing that they could help me to talk faster other than provide me the experiences and give some time. The discussion that my supervisor, the director and I had was that I needed to improve in those areas that I did not meet the requirements. As the trainer said, those skills that I needed to improve comes with experience in the field. Several times my supervisor asked me how can they help me, and I did answer all the times that I needed more time and experience in the field for me to practice and improve. They agreed to provide the experience but I was not out in the field often enough for me to practice.
I had several conversations with my supervisor that I feared to fail and this new career and I was told that I had at least a year of probationary for me to learn this job and usually it takes up to two years to learn the majority of it.
After a while I noticed that my supervisor started to target me giving me short time frames to submit works that I have never being taught how to do them, responding questions with another questions or just repeating the same thing that I did state I did not understand, and asking me to do a log where I had to write down in details every single task with details that I have made with the time and minutes. I have informed that time log was time consuming for me since I have ADHD and I took longer thinking what I have done and how long it took me than actually doing it.
I informed my trainer, who was a senior, that I felt humiliated by my supervisor since I thought that time log was just a form to make myself more deficient and she was not really using it as a tool to help me improve my performance.
Other things that my supervisor complaint about me was that I did ask many questions and sometimes the same questions to my trainer and then to her. Even they have informed the management that they thought I was not absorbing what they were saying to me. All that pressure made me feel very depressed and harassed. Very often I had call her name to ask a question to my supervisor and she walked away ignoring me or avoiding to talk to me. She even told me that any question should be asked to my trainer and not to her, when my trainer use to answer “I don’t know” to many of the questions. She seemed to be annoyed by my presence. Coincidentally she have said bad comments about people and cultural beliefs of the same nationality as me.


The supervisors and management had previous knowledge of my accent and language barrier, my ADHD, and my breastfeeding situation, and they decided to hire me temporary and then probationary for one year.

Less than a month after my first evaluation and the agreement of providing me more experiences in the field, they have terminated me. During my four months there, I never received a written warning or the plan they do before terminating employees. It’s been a week since my termination and I have not receive any paper explaining the reason for it.

Some family members that I spoke to, have told me that my supervisor committed harassment, discrimination and micromanagement. So far my ex-coworkers denied ever seen someone else having to make the time log as I did. They were also surprised they fired me before making a performance improvement plan. I never signed any paper for them either.

Could it be possible harassment and/or discrimination due to my learning disability (ADHD), gender (breastfeeding mother), or race (since they complaint about my accent and fluency)?
I am a very naïve and do not want to make a big deal of something that might not be, but if I have being a victim of harassment or discrimination I would like to do what is necessary to be respected as a minority.

1 answer  |  asked Jan 31, 2017 9:05 PM [EST]  |  applies to New York

Answers (1)

V Jonas Urba
Wow. You have a very interesting fact pattern.

I also looked at where you are in NY and discrimination in my opinion happens frequently where people are not exposed to differences from what they are accustomed to dealing with.

I also can tell that you are intelligent and your fact recollection is strong.

You made the right choice to reach out BEFORE filing charges with some agency. And since this just occurred you should apply for unemployment, tell the truth, and preferably have a lawyer represent you even if by telephone. You can not lose your unemployment benefits hearing and the testimony or evidence you discover there could help you with a potential discrimination claim.

We NELA national employment lawyers association attorneys are representing more clients long distance. Over the past couple years I have represented a couple clients who I never personally met. I recovered benefits recently for an unemployment claimant who initially answered a question falsely during a telephone hearing and I was able to correct that big problem without leading my client (which is prohibited) and the client recovered benefits.

May I suggest that you speak with experienced labor and employment counsel immediately (they may need to spend several hours reviewing specific details even though you have provided enough to show that you definitely may have a claim - often we can tell there's no claim and most of us tell the client we believe x y or z will be issues and quickly decline which is not your case yet).

Whoever the lawyer you select is should tell you the biggest potential weakness of your case - every case has one - and how that lawyer plans to address the weakness.

Some of us have represented employers before and we can put our employer hat on and tell you this will be an issue but here's how we can attack the weakness.

Good luck. Keep in mind that although NY has a 3 year statute of limitations for state court actions lawyers like me limit our practice to federal courts and 300 days from your firing you must take action or be forever barred. Count 300 days from the date of termination and know that if this is not resolved by that date you must file charges or a complaint by such date to preserve most and maybe all your rights.

Thanks for being thorough. We have to speak or review 10 to 20 potential clients to find 1 where we are likely to recover. And there just are that many hours in a week to accept clients who we can't help. Good luck.

posted by V Jonas Urba  |  Feb 1, 2017 07:03 AM [EST]

Answer This Question

Sign In to Answer this Question

Related Questions with Answers

Have an Employment Law question?