{"id":9114,"date":"2025-12-18T22:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/spotify-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-filed-by-fired-black-sales-exec\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:48:09","slug":"spotify-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-filed-by-fired-black-sales-exec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/spotify-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-filed-by-fired-black-sales-exec\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Filed by Fired Black Sales Exec"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tA former Spotify sales executive is suing the music streamer over accusations that it \u201csystematically disadvantaged\u201d Black employees and subjected them to a \u201cpattern of mistreatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a lawsuit filed Thursday (Dec. 18) in Manhattan federal court, Aisha Mootry<\/strong> claims Spotify \u201cintentionally discriminated\u201d against her during her three years as a director of sales, including by holding her to heightened standards and denying her equal support.<\/p>\n

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\n\tMootry, who says she was one of only three Black employees at Spotify\u2019s Chicago office, says her concerns were ignored when she raised the issue with HR \u2014 that is, until she was fired in January for what she calls \u201cpretextual reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSpotify\u2019s decision to systematically disadvantage Ms. Mootry and other Black employees, particularly Black women in leadership, by setting them up for failure and then blaming them for the consequences of this unequal treatment is consistent with its pattern of mistreatment and retaliation,\u201d her attorneys write.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard<\/em> on Thursday, a Spotify spokesperson said: \u201cWe strongly disagree with these allegations. Spotify is committed to a workplace where everyone is treated fairly and with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMootry says she was hired in 2020 as a contractor, then brought in as a full-time employee in 2021. She says she exceeded expectations in the role, leading her team to generate more than $42 million in revenue in 2023, 36 percent higher than her target number.<\/p>\n

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\n\tBut she claims that from the beginning, she faced \u201cdiscriminatory treatment and adverse employment conditions as compared to her non-Black counterparts.\u201d That allegedly included a sub-par team of staffers beneath her, a portfolio of weaker sales accounts, unfairly high performance standards and a failure to address discriminatory behavior by other staffers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSpotify \u2026 condoned an atmosphere where colleagues circulated race-based and stereotypical allegations that Ms. Mootry was difficult to work, perpetuating the \u2018angry Black woman\u2019 stereotype,\u201d her lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\tMootry claims that the company also tolerated \u201copenly insubordinate\u201d conduct from the staffers under her, including one uninviting her from a key client meeting. She also says she was excluded from important leadership events like team dinners, and that she and her other Black colleagues were treated like they were \u201cinvisible\u201d at the office.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSpotify disregarded, silenced, and overlooked Black employees,\u201d Mootry\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cThis exclusion was not incidental \u2014 it was deliberate, persistent, and deeply isolating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe lawsuit claims Mootry \u201ccomplained about this discriminatory behavior on numerous occasions,\u201d but was repeatedly ignored, including in a meeting in which she says her gripes about insubordination were \u201cdismissed outright\u201d and she was allegedly told she \u201cshould consider finding another job.\u201d Eventually, in January, she says she was fired after she was told \u201cit just wasn\u2019t working.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSpotify\u2019s termination of Ms. Mootry\u2019s employment was the culmination of its discriminatory treatment and the final act in a years-long effort to push her out of the company,\u201d her lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn technical terms, Mootry is accusing Spotify of violating federal as well as New York state and New York City civil rights laws, both via alleged discrimination and alleged retaliation against her by firing her.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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A former Spotify sales executive is suing the music streamer over accusations that it \u201csystematically disadvantaged\u201d Black employees and subjected them to a \u201cpattern of mistreatment.\u201d In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2471,349,1155,749,1601,303,2041,5703,1217],"class_list":["post-9114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-black","tag-discrimination","tag-exec","tag-filed","tag-fired","tag-lawsuit","tag-racial","tag-sales","tag-spotify"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9413,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9114\/revisions\/9413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}