Capital One Ex-Manager Says Forced Ranking, Bias Led to Firing

A Black former manager sued Capital One Financial Corp., alleging race and age discrimination were at play when he and other employees were terminated following the company’s implementation of a “forced ranking” performance review method.

John Hickman, who held the title of cyber technical manager, accused Capital One of using the new system to intentionally target older and Black employees and create a paper trail of alleged poor performance to justify their firings under a company reduction in force in 2023, according to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Thursday.

Hickman ...