The company founded and led by Chris Wright — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Energy — agreed to pay $265,000 in April to settle allegations of racial discrimination.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in a federal lawsuit last year that managers at a Liberty Energy site in West Texas tolerated employees’ taunting Black and Hispanic colleagues with racial slurs.
Agency officials called the harassment “flagrant” and said Liberty was “disinterested” in addressing it. EEOC’s lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas did not include any allegations specifically about Wright, Liberty’s CEO.
“They’re always strategically choosing which cases to bring,” said Jason Bent, who teaches employment law at Stetson University’s law school, of EEOC officials.
