[T]he Vermont Human Rights Commission has found “reasonable grounds” to believe a West African man was discriminated against when he tried to rent a car.
The commission found a Thrifty Car Rental employee violated Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations act when he refused to honor a car rental reservation. The car company has denied any wrongdoing in a case that involves reports of heated arguments and misunderstood claims.
The case stems from July 29, 2015, when Amadou Diallo walked into the Thrifty Car Rental location in South Burlington with the intention of renting a car. He did not have a reservation, and the employee, Randy Zeno, told him that there were no cars available.
Diallo was unconvinced; there were cars in the parking lot, he said. However, the counter workers reaffirmed that there weren’t any vehicles available for rent and he left.
The Human Rights Commission investigation found that the rental agency was at that time following a policy common in peak rental times. When there’s a high demand for bookings, the agency stops accepting walk-in customers even though there may still be cars available. Those cars are reserved for online bookings.
After being turned away, Diallo went home and successfully booked a car for pickup that day at 12:30 p.m. through Thrifty’s online reservation system.
When Diallo returned to the Thrifty office, he was upset. He believed he had initially been discriminated against because of the color of his skin and his accent. Diallo is from West Africa originally, and has lived in the United States for 16 years.
Accounts of the interaction differ, though both Diallo and Jeff Nichelson, the counter worker, agree the conversation lasted only a couple minutes.
Diallo, who could not be reached for comment, was frustrated and told investigators that he called the Thrifty employees “liars.” He claims Nichelson said he would not rent Diallo a car because he called him a liar. Diallo said he was never told about Thrifty’s policy about walk-ins during high demand periods, and denied pounding his fist on the counter.
Nichelson said he did attempt to explain to Diallo why no cars were available earlier in the day, but said his explanations appeared to irritate Diallo more.
Nichelson told the investigator that Diallo “threatened and insulted” him, though asked further detail, he said “It wasn’t that big of a deal for me that I have a clear memory of it — I remember him in the office being very agitated.”
Though there was a security camera recording the encounter, the company did not keep it, according to the investigation.
In some communications as part of the review, legal counsel for the company claimed that Diallo had pounded his fists on the counter — though the investigator notes that was not substantiated by Diallo nor Nichelson.
Diallo said Nichelson asked him to leave. Nichelson said that he informed Diallo that he would not rent him a car and the conversation needed to end.
Diallo went outside and called the South Burlington Police in order to make a report about discrimination. The officer who responded talked with Diallo and the employees. He said Diallo was “a little angry… not over the top by any means.”
The officer spoke with employees, including the manager, who said they wanted Diallo to take his business elsewhere, according to the report.
According to the investigation, Thrifty has a policy for how to address a situation when a customer becomes upset by the company’s procedure to stop accepting walk-ins when it is still possible to book cars online. The procedure, the policy states, “may appear to the customer that we have acted in a discriminatory manner.”
The four-part policy directs the employee to immediately notify the manager, who will attempt to explain the policy to the customer, and may offer the customer a perk, such as an upgrade. Nichelson told the commission investigator that he notified his supervisor about the encounter with Diallo but not until after it was over.
Thrifty’s attorneys provided investigators explanations for why Diallo was not rented a car, including that he was “disruptive to business” and that he was “abusive to Thrifty employees.”
Bill Masterson, a spokesperson for Hertz, the parent company of Thrifty, said he could not comment because the investigation was ongoing.
The investigator’s report notes that there was no direct evidence of discrimination. However, looking at the elements of the situation together, the report concludes that Thrifty’s refusal to rent Diallo a car met the threshold.
The investigation goes on to discuss implicit bias, citing a study that found that white people were more likely to perceive an action performed by a black actor as aggressive than they were to perceive the same action performed by a white actor.
“Mr. Diallo’s actions very possibly were unconsciously perceived as more threatening and more extreme because he was a person of color and he was complaining about discrimination,” the report states.
It is significant to note unconscious bias in cases that involve perceptions of people of color by white people, the report states.
“Unconscious bias is not a defense for discrimination, it is an explanation of why discrimination happens and whether actions taken are conscious or unconscious, does not make it less discriminatory,” the report states.
Karen Richards, executive director of the Human Rights Commission, said in cases where there are not clear statements of discrimination, it is important to consider the whole scenario.
Often, investigations look to compare the situation at hand with other parallel situations. However, she said, that was not possible in this case.
When the investigation pulled apart the non-discriminatory reasons the company gave for refusing to rent to Diallo, “it just didn’t add up on a number of levels,” Richards said.
“In fact, there wasn’t a legitimate reason for Thrifty to cut off that interaction when they did based on the evidence they presented,” Richards said.
The commission concluded that the most likely reason that the company ended the interaction with Diallo without renting to him was related to race and national origin, she said.
