Dell Defendant in Another Gender Discrimination Claim

A lawsuit filed in December by an Austin, Texas woman is the latest in a series of gender-discrimination cases brought against Dell Inc., the computer giant with a human resources department allegedly labeled by a Dell executive as “one of the toughest old-boy networks” in the company.

According to the Austin Business Journal, the latest lawsuit, filed Dec. 22 by Ellen Fleming in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, is at least the third gender-discrimination case brought against the company in less than three years. (WCxKit)

Fleming, a former level D-3 executive at Round Rock-based Dell who held a number of finance and comptroller positions over the last decade at the company, alleges she was treated differently from male counterparts and was terminated in March 2009 after refusing to quit when she found herself demoted.

The lawsuit also alleges that Dell withheld her annual bonus due to the fact Fleming declined to waive her rights to file a claim against the company. Fleming is now teaching at the Acton School of Business in Austin.

Fleming was fired two months prior to Dell settling for an undisclosed amount involving a 2008 gender lawsuit filed in San Francisco by four human resources managers.

Her firing was also four months before Dell settled in July 2009 a $9.1 million federal gender-discrimination lawsuit. (WCxKit)

The class-action lawsuit was filed in October 2008 by former Dell human resources manager Jill Hubley, who alleged that Dell “systematically denied equal employment opportunities to its female employees.”

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