Rehab promoted ‘Nazi sympathizers’ to management and displayed hate symbols, suit says
Seven current and former employees are suing a California rehab center, saying they were forced to work with “Nazi sympathizers” who were promoted to management, made racist comments and regularly discriminated against them.
Some of the employees, including those who are Black, Latino, Jewish and gay, quit after Executive Recovery Group Inc. didn’t stop the harassment at the company’s facility in Tarzana, according to MSD Lawyers, the Los Angeles law firm representing the employees.
The lawsuit filed Sept. 23 in Los Angeles County Superior Court and provided to McClatchy News says after the company hired a white woman as an executive manager, she fired two Hispanic managers “almost immediately.”
Around the same time, she hired two white employees — including a man with reported ties to a white nationalist group and a swastika tattooed on his face — and soon promoted them as managers, according to a complaint.
Afterward, the lawsuit says many of the man’s friends, who were “fellow members of his white supremacist group,” were hired and received “preferential treatment” — specifically promotions, the complaint says.
“By placing members of a White supremacist group in supervisory and management positions, ERG created a racist, homophobic, and antisemitic work environment that was unbearable for employees,” the complaint says.
The employees are suing Executive Recovery Group and several individual defendants on several causes of action, including harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender, wrongful termination, failure to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation and work environment harassment.
McClatchy News was unable to reach Executive Recovery Group for comment Sept. 23.
“Only when faced with the prospect of numerous lawsuits did ERG make any attempt to investigate the abhorrent conduct of its Nazi-affiliated supervisors,” according to attorney Camron Dowlatshahi, who represents the employees.
Hate symbols on display
According to the lawsuit, Executive Recovery Group “employees were forced to witness” accused white supremacist employees “throwing White gang signs, using the Nazi salute and making racist or discriminatory comments” at work.
The complaint details how “white supremacist symbols” were regularly displayed on bulletin boards in the workplace.
One of the symbols included a drawing of the “OK” hand gesture, the complaint says.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the gesture has different meanings in various cultures and “in most contexts is entirely innocuous and harmless.”
However, in 2017, the gesture began to be falsely promoted online as a hate symbol meaning “white power” and was later adopted by white supremacists who now use it as a “sincere expression of white supremacy,” the ADL reports.
In addition to displays on bulletin boards, the complaint details how several white employees were seen with “tattoos of swastikas and other hate-symbols,” the complaint says.
Gay employee ‘singled out’ during meeting
A white manager, who is accused of hanging white supremacist symbols up at work, discriminated against an employee, who’s named as a plaintiff, and sexually harassed him because he is a gay, Hispanic man.
After the manager became the employee’s supervisor, he’s accused of making the employee uncomfortable by complimenting his appearance and calling him “beautiful,” the complaint says.
At a team meeting in January, the manager “singled out” the employee, saying “this beautiful Puerto Rican homosexual shouldn’t be bathing (rehab residents),” the complaint says.
The manager explained he didn’t want the employee to be “accused of touching the men inappropriately,” and suggested a straight white employee should bathe residents instead, according to the complaint.
The employee tried to report his supervisor’s behavior and requested to not work with him, the complaint says. No disciplinary action was taken against the manager. Instead, the worker was told they could be transferred to another facility.
He resigned because “his complaints of discrimination and sexual harassment went completely unaddressed,” according to the complaint.
Racist comments and discrimination
One former employee, who is Jewish, resigned after being passed over for promotions despite “excellent” work performance, overhearing racist comments from another employee, and making several complaints to HR, the lawsuit says.
According to the complaint, the employee once heard a co-worker say “that the owners of ERG were ‘cheap’ and ‘stingy’ because ‘they’re Jews.’”
In complaints to HR, the employee reported “abhorrently racist comments and conduct,” that several white employees were given preferential treatment while some co-workers were discriminated against based on sexual orientation, and that racist symbols and drawings were on display, the complaint says.
He was told that his complaints would be investigated, but they weren’t, according to the complaint.
More than a week later, the employee noticed the racist drawings in the workplace hadn’t been taken down and he resigned, the complaint says.
Another employee, a nurse who the complaint says is “mixed-race” and a lesbian, also noticed how “Black clients and employees were treated more harshly than White clients and employees.”
This includes how Black clients were “kicked out” of the recovery program “for infractions that did not get white clients kicked out,” the complaint says.
“Our plaintiffs are a group of employees dedicated to helping their clients recover from addiction and rebuild healthy lives in the community,” Dowlatshahi said in a statement. “Seeing their efforts undermined by individuals with a hateful agenda was, in a word, obscene.”
The lawsuit seeks compensation but a specific dollar figure was not provided.
This story was originally published September 23, 2024 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Rehab promoted ‘Nazi sympathizers’ to management and displayed hate symbols, suit says."
.jpg)