Reference no: EM131006797

A white systems engineer with supervisory re-sponsibilities was terminated. This was the first discipline he had ever received. His problems stemmed from the incarceration of one of his employees, an African American, for a dispute with the employee's girlfriend. After a convoluted series of events, the supervisor was fired for allegedly having been dishonest with other man- agers about when he became aware that this employee had been jailed. The employee was subsequently replaced by two employees, one of them an African American who had previously physically threatened the supervisor without any disciplinary consequences. About a decade ear- lier, the company had settled a discrimination suit for $38 million, entered into a consent de- cree, and agreed to take affirmative action. The consent decree had expired about four years be- fore these events. There was evidence that an- other employee that the supervisor had managed had violated rules three times, costing the com- pany thousands of dollars, but the supervisor was told not to discipline him because that would "stir up the pot" and "create controversy." In the investigation that led to the supervisor's termination, the investigating manager never in- terviewed the supervisor himself. The supervisor sued. What should the court decide? Why? (Mastro v. Potomac Electric Power Co., 447 F.3d 843 (D.C. Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 1140 (2007))