Former employee: Planned Parenthood is racist and retaliated against me when I objected

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The organization founded by eugenicist Margaret Sanger to suppress non-white populations may be racist? Who knew?

Well, everyone knew, and even Planned Parenthood has finally gotten around to admitting to its racist origins in Sanger’s eugenics. According to one former employee, however, that hasn’t improved their treatment of black employees within the organization. Not only does Nicole Moore claim to have been victimized by discriminatory conduct in the corporate offices of Planned Parenthood, she also claims that the company retaliated against her for complaining about it.

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Now the former head of “multicultural brand engagement” in the Manhattan offices has filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood:

The plaintiff, Nicole Moore — a Black woman who worked as the director of multicultural brand engagement at the Manhattan headquarters in 2020 and 2021 — said she was expected to take on more work than her white colleagues, was denied opportunities to advance or lead and was retaliated against when she raised these concerns. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In the complaint, Ms. Moore described instances in which she says she was publicly humiliated and berated in front of other colleagues by a supervisor. Ms. Moore also said that her work, which focused on outreach and campaigns geared toward Black and Latina audiences, was undervalued and understaffed. When Ms. Moore took these concerns to leaders at Planned Parenthood, she said she was retaliated against and eventually fired.

“I feel that I am being discriminated against as a result of me speaking up and speaking out about biased practices and inequity,” Ms. Moore wrote in an email to her supervisors and to human resources that is included in the complaint. She added, “For asking questions about what seems to be a lack of equity and inclusion, I am being unfairly punished and accused of undermining senior leadership.”

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It’s not the first such lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, either. ABC News offers a summary of prior complaints, on which Moore builds in her own lawsuit:

In June 2020, Laura McQuade, the president of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, was ousted from her position after a barrage of complaints about alleged abusive behavior and discriminatory treatment of Black employees. She told the New York Times the claims were false but said, “this is not the time to refute them.”

The board of directors at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York acknowledged that the organization needs to confront structural racism in a statement, but also expressed support for McQuade, saying in a statement that they “fully support” her “work and leadership.” PPGNY vowed to ensure that employees reflect the community they serve and work to “[dismantle] white dominant organizational norms and practices and committing to equity standards in all organizational practices,” among other things. …

Citing an Oct. 2020 Buzzfeed News report in the complaint, which details the claims against Planned Parenthood from Black employees that were expressed in the internal audit, Moore claims that “the actual results did not seem to bother the organization – only the optics.”

Moore claims that leadership in her office retaliated against her for speaking out about her own experience.

According to the Buzzfeed report, McGill Johnson, who is Black, acknowledged during a meeting about the audit that the organization is facing an internal “reckoning” regarding its treatment of its employees.

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How much of this is real discriminatory conduct, though, and how much of this is “mircroaggressions” and other progressive victimology complaints? The lawsuit might make that pretty clear, and Moore describes conduct that would likely be actionable if she can provide enough evidence of it. Either way, the question will make Planned Parenthood’s position in the progressive firmament uncomfortable for everyone on the Left. PP relies on progressives to protect its government funding, but progressives rely on PP for political support and organizing efforts, too. If they’re bad actors on racial issues, even if it’s just woke nonsense, that will threaten those ties.

That’s not just in relation to the Democrat sacrament of abortion, either. PP made a big move a few years ago to extend its relevance into gender-transition issues by expanding its offerings to medications designed to facilitate sex changes. They’re now one of the largest providers of such medication in the US, as Abigail Shrier pointed out in February 2021. That makes PP a big ally for progressives on yet another of their pet radical causes — but also leaves them vulnerable on those issues, too. Progressives who like to push the kind of politics in play with these complaints as a weapon against other corporations will be hard pressed to explain their ties to Planned Parenthood — again — if these complaints have any basis in fact.

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What about conservatives? What does this do for their politics? Not a lot, but it does allow the Right to pass even more popcorn at a time when it’s practically becoming a national pastime.

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