Kathryn Keys vs. Humana

Legal
Name:
Institution: Description of the court case
Kathryn Keys an African American was employed at Humana Inc., from March 2005 until June 20th 2008 when her employment was terminated. From the first time that she was hired at the firm, she had encountered discrimination based on her color and race. She filled a lawsuitfollowing her employer’s discriminatory treatment allegations leading to her firing. Her claims came under the Civil Rights Of 1991 and title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district however, granted a motion to the firm to dismiss the amended complaint brought forward by Keys. This was after they found that Keys had failed to plead a prima facie case citing that she had been discriminated against relative to the provision in the McDonnell Douglas framework. The Supreme Court however, overturned the ruling by the district court citing that the framework would only be used in the pleading stage (U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE, 2012).
Performance management
Performance management is a crucial aspect for every firm and this duty that lies with the human resources management department. Ideally, staffs are supposed to be evaluated relative to their ability to deliver on their responsibilities with utmost quality and commitment. It is this system of performance that used in grading the staffs and used in tandem with other measures to promote, demote and warn employees. It is thus a cycle of events that starts with planning and setting the expectations, continuously monitoring performance, capacity development, performance rating and essentially a fair reward mechanism. In 2006, Keys was placed under the performance improvement plan. In reference to the case material, there was an interim assessment that was used in June 2007, as requested by Keys (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 2015).
Legal and ethical issues
There are some legal and ethical issues that come out from this case and the events surrounding its participants. One of the aspects that come out clearly is that despite the fact that she is in the same class as the rest of Caucasian directors, her management incentive program is less 10%. This indicates that the reward system of the performance assessment system is flawed to start with. Later on Keys is demoted despite her performance statistics and is subjected to humiliation and a performance improvement plan. All of her previou...