Cognizant Technology Solutions attempts to bury anti-white bias lawsuit

Three former employees claim they were forced out of their jobs and replaced with “less qualified” South Asians after being poorly treated by their Indian supervisors and colleagues, given unjustifiably low performance ratings and denied promotions, as reported by Bloomberg. The company contends that what it’s accused of isn’t 

covered by federal civil rights law. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, but plaintiffs’ factual allegations, on their face, plainly pertain to a claim of discrimination based on national origin, not race,” Cognizant said in a court filing. It also said the complaint is clearly targeted at “visa holders, but visa-status allegations have nothing to do with race.” 

The lawsuit is part of a broader backlash by white IT workers against the visa program that allows US companies to bring in foreign workers for job openings they say can’t be filled otherwise. President Donald Trump tapped into this discontentment to capture the White House in 2016. 

Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, signed last April, seeks to ensure that American workers aren’t unfairly disadvantaged by employers who allegedly abuse the H-1B visa program.

US District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles said Thursday she would rule on Cognizant’s request to dismiss the claims without a hearing.

Cognizant received 29,000 H1-B visas last year, according to Homeland Security Department data, about twice as much as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, second on the list. The biggest US technology companies, such as Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp, and Google Inc, are much further down the list with fewer than 5,000 sponsored visas each.

TCS may have to face a class-action trial later this year in Oakland, California, by American workers who claim they lost their jobs because the company is biased in favour of South Asian IT employees. The same Washington law firm representing the workers from TCS and Cognizant is pressing similar claims against Infosys and Wipro, two other IT outsourcing firms.