FORT WORTH, Texas — A former Texas Christian University employee is suing the school for racial discrimination, claiming he was unjustly fired for complaining about and opposing racial discrimination.
Armando Rios, who was a supervisor at the university, had been an employee with TCU for three years before he was fired. The suit argues this is a case of institutional racism.
"Since Defendant TCU’s founding by 2 slave owners, Defendant TCU has been permeated with an ethic of white elitism that has long discouraged the equal participation of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other racial minorities in university life at all levels including academically and in employment," the suit states.
This is the second suit Rios has filed against TCU. He had previously filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination claims under Title VII, but the case was dismissed in July 2022 based upon failure to exhaust administrative remedies, the suit detailed.
Rios had made numerous race discrimination complaints to TCU administrators, the suit states, but no action was taken on any of them. The suit goes onto say that TCU Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities & Campus Planning Todd Waldvogel became extremely hostile to Rios' complaints.
"Thereafter, Defendant TCU placed Rios on a performance improvement plan based on unfounded basis and Rios’s supervisor told him the Progressive Improvement Plan was wrong and unwarranted," the suit details.
The suit goes onto claim that TCU's human resources director, Kristen Taylor, claimed Rios was racist against Mexicans, despite Rios being of Mexican descent himself.
"In an incredible act of projection, it appears the only racism Defendant TCU wants to recognize is supposed racism by racial minorities as it turns a blind eye to the elitist white culture it has curated that fuels racism against racial minorities on its campus," the suit states.
The suit also claims TCU denied Rios' request to work remotely during the COVID pandemic in 2020, while similarly situated non-Hispanic employees were allowed to do so.
Rios was terminated in September 2020, the suit states, claiming poor performance as the reason, and he was unemployed for about a year.
The suit states Rios is seeking a temporary and permanent injunction ordering TCU to reinstate Rios to his last position, or a promotion with benefits. He is also seeking an injunction enjoining the university from refusing to conduct investigations of race discrimination complaints, as well as a court order declaring TCU fired Rios because of his race and as retaliation for his race discrimination complaints to warn future potential employees.
TCU said in a statement they do not comment on the details of legal or personnel matters, but that this is the second lawsuit filed by Rios and a federal court dismissed his earlier case.
"We can share that TCU engaged an outside investigator to review the former employee’s claims," the statement reads. "The outside firm did not find any instances of illegal discrimination."
