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Nanny sues former employer for discrimination

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A childcare worker is suing her former employer for discrimination after accidentally receiving a racist text on her phone. Lynsey Plasco-Flaxman sent a text that read “Not another Black person” to Giselle Maurice, a Black nanny that she had just hired, but the message was not intended for her. According to the New York Post, the message was intended for Flaxman’s husband Joel. Apparently, the mom was under the impression that Maurice was Filipino. Flaxman was embarrassed, but that didn’t stop her from firing Maurice once she actually met her and saw she was Black. Flaxman said her former nanny was Black and had done a bad job. The 44-year-old Maurice decided not to take it all lying down and has initiated a lawsuit against Flaxman. She is seeking compensation for the wages she was promised, which was reportedly about $350 a day for six months. “[I want] to show them, look, you don’t do stuff like that,” Maurice told the New York Post last Friday, noting that she only received pay for one day’s work.  “I know it’s discrimination.” The Plasco-Flaxmans, however, are arguing that they did not feel that they could trust Maurice after insulting her. “[My wife] had sent her something that she didn’t mean to say. She’s not a racist. We’re not racist people,” Plasco-Flaxman, co-chairman of the Dalmore Group investment bank, told the Post on Friday. “But would you put your children in the hands of someone you’ve been rude to, even if it was by mistake? Your newborn baby? Come on,” he added. Of course, his comments only further offended Maurice, who said she would have never treated the child any differently. “This is my reputation. Why would I do something to a baby?” she said. “I was willing to work with her and prove her wrong, but it was her conscience, and she couldn’t work with me anymore.” Maurice told the Post that she tried to settle with the Plasco-Flaxmans through mediation, but turned to a lawsuit as that didn’t work out. Plasco-Flaxman called the suit “extortion. I’m not someone who has millions of dollars lying around to just pay off people that are coming after me for extortion. And now you’re playing straight into her hands,” he argued. “My wife was two months off having a baby, suffering from a very difficult situation. You’re going to go after someone like that? That’s not a very nice thing to do.” The case is pending.

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