Racial Discrimination Claim Dismissed

Failure to Exhaust Administrative Remedies

The District Court will dismiss claims of racial discrimination if a plaintiff has failed to exhaust all administrative remedies. In Jones v. Thomas Jefferson Univ. Hosp., the Plaintiff was Khalia Jones, an African American woman who worked for Defendant Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. No. CIV.A. 13-4316, 2015 WL 505491, at *1 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 6, 2015). Jones requested accommodations at work to avoid endoscopy procedures that had radiation due to her pregnancy. Jones’ supervisors had provided these accommodations for white technicians when they were pregnant. The supervisors rejected Jones’ requests and later, terminated her, reasoning that she did not perform her job, “misrepresent[ed] information” to the supervisor, and “walk[ed] [away] from the job.”

Jones failed to exhaust all of the administrative remedies because she neglected to allege racial discrimination in her complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission before bringing this lawsuit. The only allegation alleged in Jones’ EEOC and PA HRC complaint was based on sex discrimination – that Jones’ employer discriminated against her because of her pregnancy by rejecting her requests for accommodations. Due to Jones’ failure to raise claims of racial discrimination at the EEOC level, the District Court dismissed the claims of racial discrimination.

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