HOUSTON – A former director with Culinary Institute, Inc. has brought a lawsuit against vocational school, alleging she was subjected to “unequal treatment, discrimination, and harassment by fellow employees.”
Isabel Olivas filed the suit on June 5 in the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas. The institute’s owner, a French national named Alain Lenotre, is a co-defendant in the case.
The defendants employed Olivas from May 2009 to last July.
A female of Hispanic origin, Olivas alleges Lenotre “exclusively hired” French chefs and mistreated other administrative staff who are not French. She claims the school misrepresented that it would increase her salary.
Olivas’s male counterparts were reportedly paid more than her despite her experience and title.
“When she presented her under and unequal payment to defendant Lenotre, his response was ‘Good Fun,’” the original petition says.
It further recalls an instance in which Olivas was put in charge of payroll for the institute and email a chef who was absent from duty. The chef purportedly confronted her in her office about the email, to which the suit states was “unprofessional, aggressively threatening, intimidating, and discriminatory treatment based on her sex and national origin.”
Court papers assert that Lenotre chastised Olivas and ordered her to apologize to the chef.
Following a negative performance evaluation and an internal investigation into alleged impropriety that determined no wrongdoing on Olivas’s part, the plaintiff was terminated on July 14, 2017.
“Defendant Lenotre made false allegations to drum up an investigation as a pretext to terminate plaintiff Isabel based on her protected activity,” the complaint says. “Plaintiff Isabel was asserting her right to equal treatment based on sex and national origin, and in response the defendants harassed and retaliated against her by first demoting her, and then terminating her employment.”
Consequently, Olivas seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Nathan E. Inurria and George K. Farah of the law firm Guerra & Farah, PLLC in Houston are representing the plaintiff.
Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas Case No. 4:18-CV-01854