Tesla Factory Had 'Jim Crow-Era' Drawings, Racial Epithets, Lawsuit Claims

Three former Tesla employees say they were subjected to “Jim Crow-era” racist abuse at the Fremont, Calif., factory, including being targets of daily racial slurs and graffiti.

The lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday alleges 16 civil rights and employment law violations in addition to retaliatory and whistleblower allegations against management personnel at the plant. Photos showing racist drawings as well as pictures of the plaintiffs – Owen Diaz (49), Demetric Diaz (22) and Lamar Patterson – are available here. The lawsuit details one alleged incident in which Owen Diaz overheard several racial epithets being directed at his son: “All you f****** n****** – I can't stand you m***********s.”

Owen and another African-American employee at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., factory say they found images of “Pickaninny graffiti.” The crude drawings on cardboard show dark-skinned people with large lips and bones through their noses. “Boo” is written underneath the picture. Diaz says he quit in 2016 because he could no longer tolerate the harassment at the factory.

This lawsuit is the second filed by the California Civil Rights Law Group this year, with a very similar case on behalf of DeWitt Lambert making allegations against the same Tesla factory in March.

According to that 16-count discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed by the California Civil Rights Law Group in March, DeWitt Lambert – an African-American man – says he went through months of physical, sexual and racial abuse that included consistent references to him as a “n*****.” On one occasion, a coworker stole Lambert’s phone and recorded a minute-long video rant that sees racial epithets and violent threats repeated over and over. Tesla responded to Mercury News, saying they found the video “disappointing and contrary to our values,” and that several employees had been fired from the incident.

However, Tesla reported that an internal investigation unearthed a complicated set of coworker relationships that included Lambert’s own reference to colleagues using the N-word in Facebook messages and in-person.

Attorneys in this most recent case say that Tesla, Inc.’s renowned image as a progressive innovator under Elon Musk is all a façade. The lawsuit alleges that despite repeated attempts to notify superiors of the racial harassment, nothing was done.

"What these three new cases bring to light is how Tesla's progressive image seems to be merely a façade papering over regressive, demeaning treatment of African-Americans – both employees and contract employees,” attorney Larry Organ of the California Civil Rights Group said in a statement. “All three men were targets of on-going racially motivated abuse, including the frequent use of racial slurs and Jim Crow-era graffiti. The plaintiffs complained to their supervisors but Tesla, Inc. took no effective actions.”

A Tesla spokesman denied the suit’s allegations to Mercury News, saying the men never raised the complaints to the company during their brief time working at the Fremont plant.

“Given our size, we recognize that unfortunately at times there will be cases of harassment or discrimination in corners of the company,” the spokesman said. “From what we know so far, this does not seem to be such a case.”

Tesla, Inc., formerly known as Tesla Motors, was founded by Elon Musk, JB Straubel, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. The company is an industry leader and innovator in auto-making, energy storage and solar panel manufacturing. The Fremont factory and assembly plant handles everything from robotic manufacturing to vehicle assembly with more than 6,000 human workers.