St. Mary's Honor Center Vs. Hicks Civil Rights Case Study

St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks (1993) Civil Rights Case St. Mary's Honor Center VS. Hicks in 1993 presented issues pertaining to discriminating acts. St. Marys Honor Center is a halfway house in the state of Missouri. Melvin Hicks, the defendant, claimed that he was terminated for all the wrong reasons. The claim was made that when he was fired it was due to his race. In the case Hicks files a law suit for wrongful termination under Title VII for racial discrimination. Hicks track record with St. Mary's Honor Center before the events unfolded seen him as a contributing component of the organization. Prior to being fired, Hicks experienced issues with the new change in leadership. While employed with St. Mary's Honor Center the plaintiff

Mary's Honor Center in 1978 and just two years later he was then one of 6 shift commanders. Under this new leadership Hicks found himself against odds as he was being held to much higher regulations than his peers. Hicks was going through disciplinary actions that his peers did not have to go through. At times, his peers were not even held accountable for different things that Hicks was getting in trouble for. It came a time that Hicks was actually suspended for undisclosed reasons. Eventually, Hicks was demoted from his shift commander position back to a correctional officer and then fired. It was stated that Hicks was fired due to the fact that he threatened a supervisor during an argument. One can see that events seemed to be following one after another. Therefore, Hicks filed a suit that outlined the events leading to his termination as violating his rights an American worker. He felt as if the events leading to his unemployment came as a basis of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Hicks was able to get the court to see that a prima facie existed in his case. According Reed and Borgadus (2012) St Mary's then provided evidence of legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its actions (the rules infractions for which Hicks had been disciplined). This then put the ball back in the corner of Hicks. Hicks had to make sure that he sufficient evidence for the reasons for the firing were pretexual. Despite the actions that Hicks

This case deals with risk management at an ultimate level. It definitely displays the importance of risk management and how it should be handled. Why is risk management important? One may ask such a silly question, but it needs to be addressed so that an organization can survive and prosper. We can think of risk management and best employment practices coming down to Human Resource (HR) professionals, but the management team must also take part in striving to abide by all the laws. Furthermore, it is the HR professionals duty to make sure the management team is fully aware on how to conduct business within the guidelines because in some cases knowingly or unknowingly laws can be broken and grave consequences will follow in suit. When we tie in the case of St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks legal risk management comes into play. I support the ideal that some risk management cannot be avoided by leadership and some risk taking may play a crucial role in the continuance of an organization. Although there are certain lines you should not cross and being able to cover your tracks are very important. In this case referenced, St. Mary's gave evidence as to how they made adverse employment decisions, but in the manner of doing so raised some red flags that enabled Hicks to have the opportunity for the case to eventually be heard in Supreme Court. St. Mary's in this case, does not seem like it conducted great practices when speaking of the termination process. When