A Black woman who worked in human resources for The Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles is suing the entertainment giant for wrongful termination, claiming she was fired after pointing out discriminatory practices against Black and Muslim employees at the company.
Rochella Brown was hired by Disney in August 2022 as a human resources specialist, and says in her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court (obtained by Atlanta Black Star) that she enjoyed her position, performed it well, and hoped to make a career at the company.
But Brown, 36, says she soon came to recognize “troubling patterns of discrimination,” such as when the company disproportionately laid off Black workers and employees over the age of 40 during its reductions in force in 2022 and 2023 (when it let 7,000 workers go), while heavily recruiting employees on H-1B visas from Asian countries, particularly from India and China.
One manager’s proposed reduction in force list included only African-Americans, Brown claims, and she says she disclosed her concerns about the lopsided layoffs to several supervisors, including Disney’s HR director Ivania Slater.
“They didn’t take sufficient action or meaningfully engage with Ms. Brown about these issues when she raised them,” Philip Horlacher, one of her co-counsel based in L.A., told Atlanta Black Star. “Instead, there was deflection and minimization.”
Then, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas terrorists in Israel, the complaint says Disney issued public and internal statements concerning the attack, which some employees communicated to HR they thought “contributed to a hostile work environment.”
Some employees referenced Slack communications in employee chat groups in which other Disney employees had “uttered troubling generalizations accusing all Arabs or all Muslims of supporting terrorism or violence,” the lawsuit says.
Brown likewise “felt alarmed” when she viewed some of the alleged harassing comments made by Disney’s employees, and says she discussed her concerns with Slater, suggesting that the company take remedial measures “to ensure Jewish employees continued to feel supported but also to prevent discrimination or harassment of Arab or Muslim employees.” Slater failed to take any remedial action, according to the lawsuit.
Brown says she personally experienced racial discrimination at Disney by being treated differently than white employees and being passed over for opportunities for professional advancement.
Brown typically worked in person three days a week and another two days remotely. She says she and another African-American employee were publicly reprimanded during a team meeting by Slater, who admonished them that they should work at least four days in person. Meanwhile, other non-African American employees worked remotely four days per week but were not similarly reprimanded, the complaint contends.
In another alleged instance of disparate treatment, Brown says Disney denied her request for reimbursement for a Society for Human Resource Management certification, a credential commonly obtained by HR professionals in California, which cost $500. The company cited “lack of business need” in denying her request.
But the company did agree to reimburse the tuition expenses of a white employee, Sommer Throme, to attend a master’s degree program at the University of Southern California, which costs more than $60,000, the complaint says. It notes that Thome did not engage in the legally protected activities of reporting alleged discrimination, while Brown did.
Brown claims that even though she came to the job with a master’s degree from USC in Human Resources Management, Disney deprived her of opportunities and assignments that would help her to advance. She says her supervisors disproportionately assigned such opportunities to Thome, who began working at the company in May 2022 and whose prior recent work experience consisted of a job as an administrative assistant and as a dance and yoga instructor.
Thome was promoted to the role of associate HR business partner in May 2024, “a promotion Ms. Brown was more qualified for,” the complaint argues.
In December 2023, Brown’s supervisors told her that she was under investigation for allegedly logging unworked overtime. The allegations lacked any factual basis, the lawsuit says, noting that Brown’s supervisors consistently reviewed and approved all overtime hours Brown logged.
“Her overtime was repeatedly approved in part because there was too much work for any one person to do,” says Horlacher, adding that her legal team intends to show that “she was replaced by three different people because they gave her so much work to do.”
Then on Jan. 4, 2024, Disney fired Brown, “citing this pretextual reason,” the complaint says.
Brown asserts that her supervisors were aware of another employee, Carmen Sanchez, “who previously logged unworked overtime nearly every single day.” The company investigated Sanchez and confirmed she wrongly claimed the overtime, but chose not to fire her, and instead issued a reprimand, Brown alleges. The complaint further notes that Sanchez is not African-American and “never engaged in the type of protected activity Ms. Brown engaged in.”
Taken together, the lawsuit argues, Disney and its employees persisted in a pattern and practice of discriminatory conduct, then retaliated against Brown when she opposed the discrimination, rather than undertaking remedial measures.
It says her career has “suffered immensely” and that she continues to struggle with severe emotional distress.
The lawsuit, first reported by 2UrbanGirls, alleges that The Walt Disney Company, Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution LLC and 20 as yet-unnamed employees violated the Fair Employment and Housing Act and California labor law by discriminating against her on the basis of race when it failed to promote her, denied her work opportunities, and denied her work benefits enjoyed by employees of differing racial backgrounds.
It further alleges that Disney unlawfully retaliated against her for making complaints opposing discrimination and wrongfully terminated her.
Brown seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and special damages for lost earnings, salary, bonuses, and other job benefits; emotional distress damages; punitive and exemplary damages to punish defendants and deter them “from engaging in such conduct in the future;” statutory damages including a civil penalty of $10,000 for each violation of the state labor code; and legal costs.
“Ultimately, she’s looking to have her reputation reinstated and to be treated fairly, and she wants others to be treated fairly, regardless of your race, your religion and where you’re from,” Tanya Jeffords, her Aiken, South Carolina-based co-counsel, told Atlanta Black Star.
“She worked very hard for her career, climbed the ladder as an African American woman, and so to say that ‘I am terminating you for something that is just not legitimate,’ so that you can get rid of somebody, it’s damage to their reputation,” said Jeffords.
She further noted that Disney owns a number of subsidiaries and “this means that she’s been blackballed in a lot of different places. She’s smart, she’s up and coming, she has a lot to offer. And she wants the ability to work with other companies.”
Brown is currently working in HR for a health care company in the Los Angeles area, according to her LinkedIn profile.
“She enjoys what she does, but the compensation hasn’t been the same, and the opportunities aren’t exactly the same, either,” said Horlach. “When you work for a huge company like Disney, it opens a lot of doors in your career, and it’s a place where many employees would like to work long term and retire, just like Ms. Brown hoped. So being terminated for the reasons they stated is very detrimental to her career.”
The Walt Disney Company’s communications staff did not immediately respond to Atlanta Black Star’s request for comment.
The defendants in the case have until mid-July to file a response to the complaint.
