Tesla faces new suit alleging racism

Solar roof worker says supervisor often used slur

Tesla is again facing allegations it has failed to address racism in a workplace, just months after the company lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay nearly $137 million to a Black worker over racist abuse.

This week, a Black woman who worked for Tesla Energy, the electric car giant’s solar-power subsidiary, filed a lawsuit claiming her white supervisor frequently called her the n-word, used another racial slur, and made “inappropriate sexual comments” to her when she was employed as a roofer in Santa Clara County for a year ending in September. Plaintiff Shanel Dickson’s suit against Tesla and Tesla Energy, filed Thursday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, also accused the companies of gender discrimination, claiming that as the sole woman on her solar-roofing team, she “was only given light duty work.”

Dickson alleged that after she told her manager about the purported harassment and discrimination, she was put on a “performance improvement plan” that said she was not meeting performance requirements, and that after she went to HR with her complaints, she was assigned to pick up trash while the matter was investigated. Dickson was not interviewed in connection with any investigation, “nor was she informed of any findings or resulting corrective action,” the suit alleged.

Dickson claimed in the suit that she was forced to quit because the performance plan prevented her from transferring to a New York location when her mother fell ill and needed her care. She is seeking unspecified damages.

Tesla, headed by CEO Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit follows an October case, in which a San Francisco federal court jury awarded a Black former worker at Tesla’s Fremont car factory almost $137 million. Owen Diaz, who worked at the plant in 2015 and 2016 as a contracted elevator operator, claimed in a lawsuit that he faced “daily racist epithets,” including the n-word, and