LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A Black woman is suing the Boston Consulting Group, alleging she was wrongfully fired from her job as a topic expert at the Los Angeles office in retaliation for speaking out against the harassment and discrimination that she contends she, other women and other people of color suffered at BCG.

Identified only as Jane Doe, the plaintiff also maintains in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that she was treated less well than her male colleagues. Her allegations include sex discrimination, retaliation and harassment, failure to prevent that same conduct, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

A BCG representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Tuesday. BCG is an American global management consulting firm headquartered in Boston and is one of the nation's three largest by revenue.

Jane Doe began working for BCG in Los Angeles in October 2018 as a topic expert in the Los Angeles office and was in the top 10% to 30% of talent on the basis of her 12 scored reviews, according to the suit, which further states that she was projected by management to become a managing director and partner by this year.

But Doe's standing at BCG changed once she became active in advocating for certain groups, including women and minorities, the suit states.

"She went from being a highly valued, high-performing employee to a problem employee when she continued her efforts to affect BCG's statistical underrepresentation of women and people of color in its upper ranks," according to the complaint.

Doe and others shared during a presentation that white employees often engaged in harassment, such as commenting on and touching a Black employee's hair or calling Black employees "diversity hires," the suit states.

When she returned from maternity leave after the birth of her second child, the company began its efforts to push her out, the suit alleges, citing as an example BCGs delay of her promotion to partner from July of 2023 to January of 2024.

Doe, who had a history of postpartum depression, found her condition worsened by the alleged discrimination and retaliation at work after a 2023 miscarriage, the suit states. She took a medical leave in December 2023 with the expectation of returning on March 13, 2024, but she was fired five days earlier, the suit states.

Doe has suffered lost income and emotional distress since losing her job, according to the suit.

Bill Handel