Drive For Diversity candidate claims NASCAR rejected him for looking too Caucasian
An aspiring candidate for NASCAR's Drive For Diversity has filed a discrimination lawsuit against NASCAR claiming that he was rejected from the program because he looked too Caucasian.
Mike Rodriguez filed the discrimination lawsuit against NASCAR and Access Communications last week in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania. Access Communications is the company that operated the diversity program from 2004 to 2008. Rodriguez does not specify a monetary amount of damages.
Rodriguez, who is of Puerto Rican and European descent and who has fair skin and blue eyes, alleges a NASCAR or Access Communications employee stated that he was “the poster boy for the Ku Klux Klan” during the 2005 combine where drivers compete and during the 2006 selection process.
He alleges that at the 2005 combine, he said he felt “unwelcome because of his racially identifiable characteristics,” that he hit his head on a safety bar in the car and then was not allowed to drive despite being cleared by a doctor. The 15-year-old was never invited to the combine again.
“[Rodriguez] was not chosen because defendants believe that [his] racially identifiable characteristics appear too Caucasian and do not fit defendants’ stereotyped and preconceived notion of how [he] should look,” the lawsuit states.
NASCAR has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
