Escoterica Baker has filed a lawsuit against Tulane University in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The case, identified as 2:24-cv-01060-SM-KWR, was filed on April 26, 2024. Baker is seeking damages exceeding $300,000 for alleged racial and gender discrimination and retaliation by her employer.
Represented by her attorneys, Baker claims that Tulane University violated her rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866. She alleges that she experienced arbitrary, malicious, reckless, improper, unlawful, willful, and deliberate race discrimination and retaliation by the university.
Baker was employed at Tulane's National Primate Center since 2007 and promoted to Supervisor Animal Care in 2017. In June 2023, racially charged incidents involving inappropriate comments written inside lockers were reported. Despite not having credible proof or conducting a good faith investigation, Tulane accused Baker of writing these comments and terminated her employment in July 2023.
The plaintiff is seeking monetary damages and other appropriate relief to redress these violations. She exhausted her administrative remedies under Title VII before bringing this lawsuit and received a notice of her right to sue from the EEOC investigator on April 5, 2024.