Former St. Louis Planned Parenthood employee sues for racial discrimination
According to the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood fired McGhaw because of a conflict of interest
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - A former Planned Parenthood employee who worked at the St. Louis location is suing the organization for racial discrimination.
Teona McGhaw, a Black St. Louis County woman, filed a lawsuit in April against Advocates of Planned Parenthood Of The St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri for a termination she believes was because of race.
According to the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood claimed it fired McGhaw because of a conflict of interest.
In 2022, McGhaw was elected president of the Missouri branch of the National Women’s Political Caucus. McGhaw told First Alert 4 she has volunteered with the organization for more than decade. She said Planned Parenthood addressed issues with her involvement with the volunteer organization after she became president.
In two audio recordings McGhaw provided to First Alert 4, officials with Planned Parenthood cited overlapping roles as the conflict of interest between both jobs. McGhaw said in both roles she recruited donors, organized events and attracted members of the African American community. The recordings happened while Planned Parenthood was investigating and questioning McGhaw for policy violations before her termination.
When McGhaw refused to resign from one of the positions, Planned Parenthood fired her in March 2023, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also cites two white women who voluntarily served on boards for other organizations while also working for Planned Parenthood, but the white women faced no consequences.
Planned Parenthood officials sent First Alert 4 the following statement:
Statement from Richard Muniz, Interim President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri:
“While we cannot comment on specific personnel matters, we remain firmly committed to maintaining a work environment free of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
“This lawsuit has no merit. As a nonprofit organization working in our community and regularly under political attack, we must maintain standards assuring our staff, board members, and volunteers have no conflicts of interest between our work and their outside contributions; we make every effort to work constructively with staff members to find favorable outcomes while supporting their outside activities. While we recognize this can feel limiting, these standards are in place to ensure that we can continue to provide the best possible care to our patients.”
“The top women were women of color, they just weren’t Black,” McGhaw told First Alert Wednesday.
McGhaw acknowledged Planned Parenthood may not have liked her recruiting donors for two organizations at once.
“I have friends that hadn’t got tables in years that attended their [Planned Parenthood] luncheon and those tables were $5,000,” McGhaw added.
In one of the recordings provided by McGhaw, a person with Planned Parenthood said: “Can you tell me, as the president—are you expected to fundraise for the organization?”
McGhaw responded: “Everything I do, I raise money.”
“When two white women did it—nothing happened to them,” said Rob Schultz with Schultz Law Group, McGhaw’s lawyer. “And it makes no sense for Planned Parenthood to say ‘that’s a conflict of interest,’ because what is the conflict of interest? They’re both—on the abortion issue—they’re both allied with each other.”
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