A biracial woman was fired from her job at the Black Educators Association in Nova Scotia in part because she “wasn’t black enough,” the province’s Human Rights Commission has determined.

Rachel Brothers filed a human rights complaint in 2008, claiming she had been discriminated against when she was fired from her job as a regional educator with the Black Educators Association in December 2006.

Donald Murray, chair of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, said in a written ruling issued this month that the non-profit organization “accepted colourist thinking” in 2006, and that Brothers’ skin colour played a part in her termination.

“Rachel Brothers lost her employment at the BEA in part because of decisions at the BEA in which her skin colour was a factor, and the problems that her skin colour created in her office for another BEA employee,” Murray wrote.

The Black Educators Association was ordered to pay Brothers $11,000 plus interest.

When contacted by the Star for comment, Brothers said, “I don't think there is anything else to say, the facts are the facts and I am happy with the decision.”

Brothers worked for the organization for nearly a year in 2006, based out of the Kentville, N.S., office. Her work was “destabilized,” however, by Catherine Collier, an employee she supervised who consistently undermined her, Murray said in his summary of the evidence. Collier said Brothers “wasn’t black enough” to connect with the black community, and caused problems for both Brothers and her administrative assistant, another biracial woman.

“It is clear to me that Ms. Brothers was undermined in part because she was younger than, and not as black as, Ms. Collier thought that Ms. Brothers should be,” Murray wrote.

Another employee made “colourist” comments to Brothers, saying that she “should go work for whitey.”

The comments and Collier’s behaviour created “an unpleasant work environment” for Brothers, who brought the issue to the attention of head office. The organization’s executives were “persistently deaf” to the complaints and failed to act, Murray wrote.

Executives from the Black Educators Association said Brothers was fired for financial misconduct, but Murray wrote that no evidence of financial misconduct was presented to the commission. Instead, he determined the organization fired Brothers because Collier had a better relationship with the Black Educators Association’s head office.

The Black Educators Association, which exists to help students from the black community benefit from Nova Scotia’s education system, did not return requests for comment.

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