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A former project manager at the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has revived her lawsuit against the trade group after a Chicago court dismissed most of the charges in the original suit.
Roshani Sheth, who claims she was fired in retaliation for filing internal discrimination complaints against three company executives, filed an amended complaint on Tuesday that seeks to bolster her case for three of the five charges that were dismissed in April.
The court previously allowed a breach of contract charge to stand, while the amended complaint drops a tortious interference charge that U.S. District Court Judge Georgia N. Alexakis ruled against.
Sheth, who is of Indian descent, added context to her claim that NAR retaliated against her for accusing senior vice president Donna Gland, talent director Linda Russell and chief legal counsel Katie Johnson of discrimination.
The trade group reportedly agreed to provide a neutral reference to Sheth after her dismissal. Instead, the plaintiff claims that NAR didn’t provide a reference at all or directed Sheth’s potential employers to one of the parties she accused of discrimination.
The suit claims that NAR allowed and even encouraged other employees to cyberstalk Sheth, with some messages telling her to “kill yourself” and others that labeled her as a “rat.”
Sheth also believes that the company gave more favorable treatment to white employees who made sexual harassment allegations by promoting them while responding to Sheth’s claims by putting her on a performance improvement plan. This was allegedly done with “racial animus.”
The amended complaint also puts her suit in the context of legal woes NAR was facing at the time. Sheth worked at NAR from 2014 to 2019, or about when antitrust lawsuits against the trade group began to surface.
Sheth believes that her treatment was partly intended to silence her before allegations of misconduct were made public, given that NAR was already under scrutiny both internally and externally, particularly with regard to harassment.
In August 2023, The New York Times published a report on allegations of sexual harassment and a “culture of fear” at NAR. Kenny Parcell, who served as president at the time, resigned in light of the story.
