A black woman who is an employee of LPL Financial is suing the company for alleged discrimination that spanned six years.
Rende D. Beaufort, who works in the Fort Mill, S.C., service center of LPL, said the firm discriminated against her because of her gender and race, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, N.C.
She is asking for lost wages for times when she was not promoted, compensation for the emotional distress caused her by her poor treatment and punitive damages.
LPL, the largest independent broker-dealer in the U.S., filed an answer in federal district court denying Beaufort’s claims. The original complaint was filed in June and the LPL answers were filed in August.
In her complaint, Beaufort cited four other black women employees whom she said also were discriminated against by not receiving equal pay to other employees doing the same job and by being passed over for promotions.
Beaufort began working for LPL in 2012 as a service center associate at $41,000 a year. The service center provides support for LPL brokers and advisors. She now is a service center manager making $61,000 a year, according to the complaint.
During her time at LPL she has been passed over for promotions, harassed by co-workers and treated dismissively by supervisors, the suit said, adding that she always received at least satisfactory performance reviews.
For instance, in October 2016 she applied for an investigator position that required fraud investigation experience, which she had, but she was not even interviewed for the job, the lawsuit said. Instead, the position was give to a white male with no fraud investigation experience.
Some supervisors named in the suit are known for not promoting qualified women and instead promoting unqualified men, the complaint said.
According to the suit, LPL failed to protect Beaufort from harassment by a male co-worker. In addition, during a managers’ meeting held in July 2017, an associate vice president who is an Asian female twice referred to the third floor of the building in Fort Mill, where many black associates work, as the Section 8 floor, an apparent reference to Section 8 low-income housing, the lawsuit said.