05 Oct 2000, 12:00 am
The lawsuit names Monique Donaldson, a former Microsoft program manager, who claims she was given a poor evaluation by her boss because of his racial and gender bias and because she was later denied another job at the company.
Ms Donaldson is being represented by the US firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, which has earned a name for major cases of this kind. It was the principal firm involved in resolving a race discrimination case against Texaco in 1997 for $176 million when company officials were alleged to have engaged in racial discrimination.
According to Cohen Milstein's Managing Partner, Steven Toll, the complaint against the software giant alleges that, “Microsoft has allowed managers to make basic personnel decisions based on individual bias rather than merit.” It also claims that the company engaged in a “pattern and practice of race and sex discrimination and retaliation.”