Short and simple version of the history of this case:

New employee to my department was discriminated against based on religion and race. She had several conversation/emails from the manager of the department who stated she would be more promotable if she was Christian.

New employee files complaints up the chain of command and was told that the upper level management would handle the harassment/discrimination. The harassment continues, so the new employee visits with Human Resources. After visiting with HR, the new employee is berated by the department manager and the new employee is retaliated against in the form of intimidation and her job duties are reassigned to be less than she was hired for.

New employee starts recording meetings/conversations with the department manager after being continually harassed and having her words twisted. When the department manager finds out she cries to the department VP, and the next day the new employee’s job duties become even less and she is no longer allowed to attend critical meetings or conference calls.

Over the next month, the harassment slowed down and the department manager was coached to constantly praise the new employee by email and in person. The new employee was constantly told what a great asset she was and was thanked for working so hard.

Then suddenly the new employee was fired for supposedly not being able to work with the manager (this manager has had several complaints about her in the past, and recently admitted that she didn’t like or know how to manage people). The VP who fired her also told her that she knew what she did.

Right after new employee was fired, I was called into a meeting with the VP who informed me of the firing and told me that he knew that I knew what had been going down (I witnessed a lot of the discrimination) and that I needed to just work with the manager and move on. I was essentially threatened into keeping my mouth shut about what happened if I wanted to keep my job.

After being threatened, I emailed all emails related to the discrimination case to myself and the new employee (her family is taking the case) as evidence of the discrimination and harassment. These emails were not used for any sort of proprietary gain and I never signed any sort of confidentiality agreement.

I was fired the next day for supposedly breaking the company’s policy.

Is there potentially a wrongful termination suit in there for me too? I was intimidated and my job was threatened by the VP, and I only took action to protect myself. In my two plus years of working there, I did not have one complaint against me, was respected by everyone, and was referred to as the ‘rock’ of the department. I feel like my firing was direct retaliation for trying to protect myself and a discriminated employee.

Thanks for your help!