Blacklist isn’t a racist word, tribunal rules
AN ASIAN software engineer has lost a discrimination case after claiming a colleague’s use of ‘blacklist’ was racist.
Taiyyib Azam, 38, accused the IBM co-worker of bigotry for using the term following the murder of George Floyd in the US.
The cybersecurity expert – who was part of a team codenamed X Force red – made other ‘puzzling’ accusations, including that his managers were performing ‘black magic’ and ‘voodoo’ on him.
He made unsubstantiated allegations of racism to ‘support his views that every individual he interacted with was racist’, the tribunal found.
Mr Azam, based at IBM’s Warwick office, took the US firm to an employment tribunal, claiming to be a victim of race, disability and religious discrimination and victimisation.
He insisted he was the victim of more than 30 acts of discrimination. But the Birmingham tribunal dismissed them, ruling all of Mr Azam’s allegations were unfounded and his blacklist accusation was ‘contrived... to bolster his own case’.
In May 2020, at around the time Mr Floyd, who was black, was murdered by a white officer in Minneapolis, Mr Azam said he was racially attacked by a colleague who referred to ‘blacklisting’. But employment judge Geraldine Flood heard expert testimony that explained blacklisting referred to computer networks that are barred from connecting to certain systems.
She said: ‘We found this a puzzling allegation as the only reference to blacklisting at this time we saw in messages was made by Mr Azam.’
The tribunal heard that Mr Azam began working for IBM in October 2015 in one of its cybersecurity departments, earning £55,000.
The hearing was told difficulties began in 2016 when he said he deserved a promotion. In following years he claimed his race was the reason he was denied promotions.
But the tribunal heard Asian staff had advanced to the ‘highest’ positions at IBM and Mr Azam simply had ‘unrealistic expectations of his own progression’. Throwing out his claim, the judge said of Mr Azam: ‘We struggled with the plausibility and reliability of much of his evidence.’
‘A puzzling allegation’