Former Chiefs employee suing team over racial discrimination

A former Kansas City Chiefs employee has filed a lawsuit against the team for racial discrimination. According to Margaret Fleming of Front Office Sports, Ramzee Robinson, a Black man, filed a complaint in the Western District of Missouri this past Wednesday. He claimed that the Chiefs paid their Black employees less than their White counterparts.

Robinson worked for the Chiefs for nine years and most recently served as the team’s director of player engagement. The filing also claims that Kansas City fired Robinson in February for an incident caught on camera without him showing a tape and stopped another team from interviewing him even though he was already fired.

When Ramzee Robinson began with the Chiefs in 2016, he was a coordinator and was paid $35,000. In his last job with the team, he was paid $125,000. The suit said that Robinson was underpaid compared to other NFL teams, but the Chiefs would not grant him a raise of “compensation review.”

Ramzee Robinson was fired from the Chiefs after this year’s Super Bowl

The lawsuit also said that a Black woman resigned from her job that paid $50,000 a year after the team’s “refusal to increase her salary or consider a promotion.” Melissa Weinsz, a White woman, replaced her and was paid $80,000 per year. Weinsz was one of the Robinson’s direct reports.

Robinson was fired from the Chiefs on Feb. 15, six days after the Chiefs lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl, for  “conduct detrimental to the league.” His boss said that he attacked Weinsz in an incident captured on security cameras but wouldn’t show him the video. The lawsuit said that Robinson renewed his contract with the Chiefs before he was fired, and after the firing, the Houston Texans asked to interview him. The Chiefs didn’t allow it, saying that it would violate his contract. Robinson is suing for racial discrimination, retaliation, and tortious interference with business expectancy.

Ramzee Robinson played in the NFL, spending time with multiple teams from 2007 to 2009 (was on the practice squad for multiple teams from 2010 to 2012). He was a cornerback and played in 26 games for the Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns. Robinson played college football at Alabama and was selected by the Lions in the seventh round of the 2007 NFL Draft.