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June 11, 2008 |
'It Hurt,' woman suing NASCAR says; Suit lists slurs she says she endured
By Gary Graves
USA Today
June 11, 2008
The hurtful racial and sexual remarks, text messages and e-mails from her white co-workers bothered Mauricia Grant, but she was determined to soldier on as NASCAR's first African-American female technical official.
Had the sanctioning body not fired her, Grant thinks she would still be doing the job she worked hard to get.
The circumstances culminating in her firing in October led the Bronx, N.Y., native to file a $250million lawsuit Tuesday, accusing NASCAR of discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination. Her 40-page filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York lists examples in which she says other NASCAR technical inspectors called her "nappy-headed Mo" and "al-Qaeda," among other eptithets.
The reaction Grant got from then-Busch (now Nationwide) Series director Joe Balash and her subsequent firing after complaining were the final straws.
"He basically told me I had to deal with it because the men that I was working with, a lot of them were military men and I needed to learn how to act like they act if I wanted to be successful," Grant told USA TODAY. "I felt like I was in it by myself and that I had to make an attitude adjustment. It hurt because I basically tried to do my job and tried to avoid my co-workers. I was hurt and disgusted by the whole thing."
Grant, 32, said her breaking point came last summer as she prepared to leave her hotel to work a Busch Series race in Montreal. Expecting to carpool with fellow officials, she said she was left standing in the parking lot as the car "peeled out" for the track.
She also said Balash -- who did not return phone calls for this story -- urged her to stop "talking street," although he wasn't specific in what that meant and didn't state how she should talk.
"That was hurtful to hear, that I was being compared to a street person," Grant said.
Grant's situation stands out because NASCAR has boosted efforts to recruit more minorities and women in its corporate offices as well as at the track. Many teams have African-Americans and Latinos working in some race-day capacity, and attendance has increased in some venues.
Some things haven't changed, such as the display of the Confederate flag at many venues despite the sport's unease. That image and Grant's lawsuit might reinforce the perception among minorities that NASCAR's diversity efforts are simply a smokescreen for continuing long-held prejudices in its workforce.
"Perception is reality, and I think the perception of many will be to reinforce ... that NASCAR has been playing a game of diversity when it appears, based upon the lawsuit, that diversity is not really pursued as one would suspect it would be," said Jon Ackley, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond who teaches a Business of NASCAR class.
Said Steve Ellis, senior vice president at crisis management firm Levick Strategic Communications in Washington, D.C.: "If they don't do anything, the perception is silence is acceptance. There's an image of this being a white-guy sport for many years, and they need to at least say they're doing something."
As bad as the reaction was from colleagues when Grant was working, the public backlash might get worse with the lawsuit. She said she's prepared for what might come, just as she tried to endure on the job.
"I'm from the Bronx, so I can take it," she said. "I just need to make it clear that I'm not interested in being silent on this."
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