Jill Prejean, a former Vice President of talent acquisition at Infosys told a US court that she was asked by the Bengaluru-headquartered IT company to avoid hiring people of Indian origin, women with children at home and candidates aged 50 or above.
This is the second time that the Indian IT company faces allegations of discrimination in hiring practices in the US.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on Friday rejected Infosys’ motion to dismiss the suit filed by Prejean for retaliatory termination and a hostile work environment. Prejean filed the suit against Infosys, former senior VP and head of consulting Mark Livingston, and former partners Dan Albright and Jerry Kurtz.
Alleging unjust termination, the former Infosys V-P in her suit said that company partners Kurtz and Albright “turned hostile” towards her when she objected to comply with illegal demands for hiring senior executives for the company.
The plaintiff was hired to recruit “hard-to-find executives” to work as partners or VPs in the consulting division of the firm. She was 59 when she was hired for the job in 2018.
According to her complaint, “she was shocked to find a rampant culture of illegal discriminatory animus among the partner level executives based on age, gender and caregiver status.”
The complaint further mentions that Prejean “tried to change this culture within the first two months of her employment” but was met with “resistance from Infosys partners – Jerry Kurtz and Dan Albright – who became hostile in the face of her objections and tried to circumvent her authority to evade compliance with the law”, according to the ET report.
The complaint further mentions that the biases violated New York City Human Rights Laws and cost Prejean her job.
The court also asked the defendants to submit their replies to the accusations within 21 days from the date of order on September 30, reported Economic Times.
Infosys and the accused executives had filed for a dismissal of the suit on grounds that the complainant did not highlight specific comments as proof
