Nationwide — PulteGroup CEO Ryan Marshall is being sued for covering up an incident where black employees were threatened with a noose.
The plaintiffs in the suit, Richard Turnbow, Idus Hartsfield, and Roderick Hunter have released a statement confirming they have exited the Michigan courts as a venue for their suit while denouncing Marshall for his continued “mistreatment” of the three former PulteGroup employees.
“While we sued PulteGroup after suffering racial discrimination, we have decided to withdraw this particular litigation rather than settle on terms that would require us to ‘sell out’ and portray a false version of the real culture at PulteGroup,” said the statement of Turnbow, Hartsfield, and Hunter. “Ryan Marshall’s PulteGroup threatened to use procedural legal tactics to evade responsibility for racist wrongdoing and condoned an employee using a noose with Black employees; PulteGroup’s response to the litigation which was brought in good faith after years of reporting racism and discrimination confirm that PulteGroup and Ryan Marshall, the CEO, have not learned anything from years of mistreatment of its employees.”
The plaintiffs spoke out after a PulteGroup executive “openly waved” a noose in front of them, warning them “not to hang themselves.”
PulteGroup released a statement describing the allegations as “reprehensible,” but Turnbow stated that CEO Ryan Marshall not only knew about the “noose incident,” but covered it up and terminated the black employees that blew the whistle.
“Ryan Marshall has fired just one of the players in the racist and discriminatory scheme our lawsuit made public,” said Richard Turnbow. “He also has not sent me or my fellow litigants an apology. We lost our employment because we were targeted, lynched, harassed, and terminated or chased from PulteGroup. The Atlanta office is a mess and it’s run by the CEO. The buck starts and stops with him.”
After Hartsfield reported the noose incident to human resources, he was repeatedly “written up for non-issues” until he was terminated in May 2020. Hartsfield had never been written up in his four previous years at the company.
CEO Ryan Marshall, under fire for his role in the racist “noose incident” at PulteGroup, released a statement acknowledging racism in the company.
“Marshall passed responsibility alleging an organized conspiracy against him or sought to downplay the racism by saying that one of the incidents, the ‘Noose Meeting,’ was in 2019,” said Turnbow. “Ryan Marshall doesn’t care about equality or diversity. His statement proves that much! Apologize and let us get on with our lives. Put an end to the legal games. We appreciate the thousands of messages over the internet and messages from our former colleagues at PulteGroup.”
PulteGroup is a Fortune 500, publicly traded company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the “PHM” ticker symbol. PulteGroup is the third-largest homebuilder in the country.
