Workday is being sued for racial and disability discrimination

• A Black Workday employee sued the company, claiming race and disability discrimination.
• While he was in the hospital, Workday sent police to his home.
• Anthony Hill, the employee, claims he has faced other incidents of racial bias at the company.

A Black Workday employee filed a racial and disability discrimination lawsuit against his employer after the employer sent police to his home for a “wellness check” while he was being treated at a hospital and requested a medical leave of absence.

Anthony Hill, a senior counsel at Workday who is Black and on leave from the company, filed the lawsuit in December 2023 in Northern District of California court. The case is still pending.

In June, the case was dismissed without prejudice because the court ruled that Hill had not adequately advocated for California law to apply outside the territory. Workday is based in California, while Hill is based in Maryland. Hill filed an amended complaint, which Workday dismissed. The legal settlement negotiations last month were unsuccessful.

Hill said he is on medical leave from October 12, 2022 to November 22, 2022.

Leading up to his vacation, Hill said he began drinking more as he became increasingly stressed. On Oct. 12, 2022, he went to the hospital because of “stress, exhaustion and trauma related to this and other disparate, discriminatory, retaliatory, harassing and hostile treatment” by other Workday employees, the lawsuit says.

That day, Hill emailed his supervisor to tell her he was having a medical emergency and needed to go to the hospital. He also sent a completed leave request form and said he would submit the required Family and Medical Leave Act paperwork soon.

The next day, his manager responded with information about FMLA and said, “Please don’t worry about work and focus on feeling better.”

On October 20, 2022, while he was still hospitalized, Workday sent police to his home for a “wellness check.”

According to a police report on the incident, a security manager at Workday called police for a welfare check on Hill because the company was unable to contact Hill or his wife, his emergency contact. Police spoke with Hill's wife, who confirmed that Hill was receiving medical treatment, the report said.

Hill told Business Insider that he received no records, calls or emails from Workday after his manager's last email on October 13 and before the incident.

While in the hospital, Hill was unable to use his cell phone, so a staff member at the rehabilitation center informed Hill of this and allowed him to call his wife. Hill said when he heard about it he felt like he was “having a heart attack” and his wife, who was home at the time, was “upset” by the incident.

The Montgomery County Police Department, where the health inspection was conducted, declined to comment because it is not involved in the lawsuit.

“You would have thought that on October 20, police with guns couldn't solve anything that doctors with stethoscopes couldn't solve,” Hill told BI.

Workday declined to comment for this report.

The FMLA guarantees eligible employees of covered employers the opportunity to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid medical or family leave per year. The employee must make it clear that they need to take leave for FMLA reasons, while the employer should notify the employee that they are entitled to sick leave and provide the employee with the paperwork to complete.

The Department of Labor requires employers to give employees 15 calendar days to provide their complete medical certification under the FMLA.

When he was admitted to the hospital, Hill said he was initially worried about FMLA compliance because he hadn't completed the paperwork at the time, but staff informed him of this legal protection. He said the hospital provided the FMLA paperwork within 15 days.

Hill filed a lawsuit against Workday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April 2023. In August 2023, he first filed a lawsuit against the company in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.

Returning from sick leave

In March 2023, a few months after returning from vacation, Hill asked Workday's human resources department for more information about the health check. The staff refused to provide him with any information or documentation about it.

“You won’t tell me anything. Did they think it was an emergency? “Did they think I was in danger?” Hill said. “Did you think I would hurt someone? Why did they send the police to my house and put my wife and children in danger?”

Cassie Lenning, partner at Outten & Golden, a law firm that represents technology employees and is not involved in the lawsuit, said that Workday may have tried to contact Hill to complete his FMLA paperwork, but that it was unusual to send police to an employee's home to check his health status.

If an employee had mental health issues that the employer knew about, that could be a situation in which an employer could send someone for a wellness check, Lenning said.

“Even under these circumstances, why wouldn’t they send someone from the office and not the police? There is still a certain level of escalation when you call the police, whether well-intentioned or not,” Lenning said. “I question the judgment of someone who would send the police to a black man’s house. There are racist implications that are being ignored.”

Hill said that after returning to work, he received “horrible treatment,” including being met with even more resistance at work and being excluded from invitations to meetings. He said he had a modified schedule where he worked part-time.

In January 2023, he notified Human Resources of his claims of racial and disability discrimination at the company and requested to be transferred to a different group in the workplace. The company's human resources department investigated the case and then closed it in March, concluding that his claims were “meritless,” the lawsuit says.

Additional Employment Discrimination Claims

Hill has been working at Workday since January 2021. In the run-up to his vacation, he said, he sought a promotion but was denied it. When he asked his supervisor, he was told he had to put together and submit a document about his achievements.

“This is a hurdle that my non-Black colleagues have not had to overcome,” Hill said.

Later, he said, his work came under increasing pressure, such as when he enforced policies that limited the giving of gifts to federal officials that the company wanted him to sign. According to the lawsuit, Hill also said a colleague told him during a meeting, “Everyone knows you don't want to work, Anthony,” and he reiterated his work ethic and professional reputation. Hill told his manager the incident was “racist.”

“It was very clear to me that they were setting me up to fail,” Hill said.

In March 2023, Hill was placed on a paid administrative suspension for five weeks. In May 2023, Hill took approved disability and medical leave but was denied long-term disability leave.

“There is no doubt that I have suffered repeated retaliation,” Hill said.

Workday is also facing a class action lawsuit alleging that its AI software for employers screens applicants on discriminatory grounds.

In 2020, following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people at the hands of police, several tech companies shared statements taking a stand against racism. These promises have resulted in little action to improve diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in tech companies.

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