Former Inspector Cites Racial, Sexual Discrimination, Wrongful Termination

HARRISBURG, N.C. — A former employee of NASCAR is suing the sanctioning body for $225 million, alleging racial and sexual discrimination among other charges, while NASCAR Chairman Brian France maintains none of the incidents cited in the suit were reported.
Mauricia Grant, a black technical inspector in the NASCAR Nationwide Series from Jan. 2005 through Oct. 2007 when she was fired, filed suit June 9 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit lists multiple incidents of alleged sexual harassment and racial discrimination as well as wrongful termination.
Seventeen NASCAR officials, including Grant’s superior NASCAR Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash, are named in the suit.
Grant claims she was told she worked on “colored-people time” and was routinely harassed by a fellow official who made Ku Klux Klan references.
Among the many occurrences cited in the suit, she alleges that Balash asked Grant: “Does your workout include an urban obstacle course with a flat-screen TV on your back?”
As well, the suit claims Grant was forced to work outside in the sun more frequently than white officials because her supervisors believed she couldn’t be sunburned because of her skin color.
The suit claims Grant reported the many instances of harassment to her supervisor, but NASCAR Chairman Brian France, who said NASCAR will investigate the charges, said the company has no record of any reports.
“The fact that it went on as she stated, Ms. Grant, for many months, but never bothered to tell anyone at management what was going on, which is what our policy says, is very disappointing,” France said June 10. “We would have liked, if those types of things were in fact going on, we would have loved to have done an investigation and a review of such an allegation. We’ll still do that because now she has made these claims.”
France insisted NASCAR was unaware of the charges until the suit was filed.
“Our policy is such that it’s very clear — we talk to employees all the time about making sure that their work environment is a good one,” he said. “If it’s not, if there’s any problems, they have a very clear path to get it solved. But she didn’t do that, and that’s what every employee at NASCAR is instructed to do if they think they are in a situation of discrimination or harassment or whatever it might be.
“But she just didn’t do that, and in fact, has now filed a lawsuit as a remedy to this problem. We’ll deal with that as well.”
Grant claims that two weeks after her final complaint to supervisors, she was warned for “conduct unbecoming of a NASCAR representative” after a confrontation with a track official at Michigan Int’l Speedway. Two months later she was fired, with NASCAR citing poor performance in her termination.
The suit also alleges that officials Heather Gambino and Jane Hayes were fired for separately complaining about being sexually harassed in the workplace.