Woman sues IBM over lost job, claims she was passed over because she is white

A Boston resident who says she had a promised job at IBM pulled away because she's white this week filed a discrimination and breach-of-contract suit against the computing company.

In her suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Christine Parker charges she was not only up for an executive-level job heading up an IBM group selling cloud-computing systems to large banks in 2021, she was offered the job - which led her to rejects similar offers from other computing companies - and that all that remained for her to start the mid-six-figures job was for some contract language to be finished.

But then, she alleges, the job was pulled from her at the last minute and instead given to an Indian candidate - by a manager who was himself Indian.

The person in India who was hired instead of Ms. Parker was racially non-White/non-Caucasian, and was racially Indian. ...

The only reason Ms. Parker's offer was rescinded, and she was not hired, was her race, White/Caucasian. The only reason Ms. Parker was not hired was because she was not racially Indian. Ms. Parker was discriminated against by IBM due to her race when her offer was rescinded, and she was not hired. But for her race, Ms. Parker would have been hired. But for her race the employment offer would not have been rescinded.

Parker is seeking compensation for lost wages - she said it took her 2 1/2 years to find another job, and it paid far less - the damage to her career caused by that 2 1/2-year gap and for the "severe emotional pain" that included seeking help from a psychotherapist and which she says continues to this day, as well as punitive damages.