The company posted the same role months after cutting it for 'budget constraints'
A former university recruiting manager is suing Lenovo, alleging the tech giant fired him over his race, sex, and sexual orientation - then quietly reposted his job.
The federal complaint, filed September 15, 2026, in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, accuses Lenovo (United States) Inc. of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act - the main federal law prohibiting workplace discrimination - on four counts: race discrimination, sex discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, and retaliation.
The worker, who identifies as a Hispanic gay man, joined Lenovo in May 2022 as the North American University Recruiting Geo Talent Manager. His job covered strategy, program development, and full life-cycle university recruitment, including leading a team of recruiters, according to the complaint.
For more than two years, the filing states, the worker performed his role without issue.
He was the only male, only Hispanic, and only gay member of his team, the complaint alleges.
The trouble started in August 2024, according to the filing. The worker asked his direct supervisor for extra help heading into the busy fall recruiting season - both from the professional hiring team and through a contracted hire. Both requests were denied, the complaint states. It was the only request the supervisor turned down.
When the worker raised concerns about the denial, the supervisor allegedly asked if he "was happy here," the complaint states.
A senior director agreed the team was stretched thin and needed more resources, the filing says. An internal transfer eventually joined the team in late November 2024 to help with the spring cycle.
Then came a personal crisis. In March 2025, the worker's fiance learned he would need heart surgery on April 22, with a recovery period of at least one month requiring assistance, supervision, and care, according to the complaint. The worker discussed the situation with his supervisor, who approved him to work from home from April 22 through May 20, 2025.
But the filing alleges the supervisor began pushing back on that arrangement almost immediately.
When the worker's team devised a plan to split a departing colleague's workload evenly, the supervisor allegedly texted his personal phone: "YOU need to take the majority of the work," the complaint states. On May 6, the supervisor told the worker, "I need you to step back full-time," according to the filing. By May 13, she was asking for his "plan" to return to the office by May 19 - one day before his approved remote period ended, the complaint alleges.
The complaint also alleges the supervisor made disparaging comments about the worker's remote arrangement to other team members during this period.
In June 2025, the annual review landed. According to the complaint, the supervisor rated the worker's performance at 85% - which the filing describes as a 15% drop over the prior two years. The complaint alleges the review contained "false and misleading statements," that the worker was never told his performance was lacking, never received a mid-year evaluation under this supervisor, and was never placed on a performance improvement plan.
At the same time, the complaint alleges, a direct report - described in the filing as a white, straight woman who shared the same workload - received a 105% rating. The filing describes this as a "20% discrepancy" between the two employees who together made up Lenovo's entire North America university recruiting team.
On June 9, 2025, the worker filed a formal complaint with Lenovo's employee relations team, challenging the review and raising concerns about his supervisor's conduct, the filing states. An investigation was opened, but the complaint alleges the worker never received an update, and the investigation remained open at the time of filing.
The complaint paints a picture of internal channels that offered little support. The worker alleges that when he first raised concerns with a designated HR partner, she laughed during the call and told him she did not believe the conduct amounted to harassment, adding that employee relations "wouldn't have a case." An employee relations investigator allegedly told the worker during an intake interview that "race and gender discrimination is difficult to prove," according to the filing.
On July 15, 2025, the complaint states, the worker was told his role would be cut in a "Resource Action" - Lenovo's term for a restructure - due to budget constraints. His last day was August 15, 2025.
The filing alleges the supervisor delivered the news by reading from a script and "was void of emotion," but was "in tears" and calling another affected employee "my best friend" when giving that person the same message.
The supervisor then went on a week-long vacation and asked the worker to cover for her - despite having just told him his job was ending, the complaint alleges. She also continued to assign him the same volume of work, leaving no time to plan for his departure, the filing states.
During what the complaint describes as an exit meeting at a local Starbucks, a senior director allegedly avoided discussing the strained supervisor relationship. When the worker mentioned that colleagues would miss him - including, the complaint notes, the mostly Hispanic cafeteria staff - the senior director allegedly responded, "Oh, did you talk to them in 'Espanol'?" in what the filing describes as a sarcastic tone.
The complaint raises broader concerns, too. The worker alleges his supervisor tried to end Lenovo's partnership with Out4Underground Digital, an LGBTQ+ nonprofit the worker had led for three years, by attempting to pull already-allocated funding without prior discussion. The filing also alleges the supervisor undermined a Black female intern who worked under the worker, assigning her "remedial tasks" and later telling a decision-maker the intern "was not a hard worker and was not a good fit" to stay with the company. The intern was not selected for a graduate rotation program, which the complaint attributes to the supervisor's "undue influence."
At the heart of the complaint is the claim that the "Resource Action" was a pretext - a cover story for discrimination and retaliation. The filing points to several factors: Lenovo's revenue for fiscal year 2024/2025 grew 21% year-on-year, which the complaint describes as the company's second-highest annual revenue; the supervisor allegedly told the team to offer a newly hired contractor "whatever she wanted for a salary as money was not a concern"; over six additional people were hired to the talent acquisition team after the worker's departure, according to the filing; and on November 24, 2025, Lenovo posted a job for a University Recruitment Program Manager with what the complaint describes as the same job description the worker had held.
An internal presentation allegedly given by the supervisor on August 8, 2025 - a week before the worker's last day - showed his North American position "on hold," not terminated or changed, while two other campus team positions were being actively filled, the complaint states.
The worker filed a charge with the EEOC on December 5, 2025. The agency issued a right-to-sue notice - formal permission to take the claim to federal court - on June 17, 2026. The complaint seeks compensatory damages including back pay, emotional distress, reputational harm, attorney's fees, and a jury trial.
The allegations in this complaint have not been tested, and no court has made any findings or rulings on the merits.
