A former employee with ETS - which develops the GRE and administers the SAT - said the organization was discriminated against him because of his race.
A student takes a practice test. PRINCETON - A former research scientist with Educational Testing Service (ETS) has sued the organization claiming he experienced years of racial discrimination at the company behind the SAT and the GRE exams.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this month in Mercer County Superior Court on behalf of John Young, a former senior research scientist with ETS who is an Asian-American, according to the lawsuit.
The organization is headquartered in Princeton - where Young worked - and develops standardized tests including the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the GRE. They also administer the SAT and the AP exams.
Young's suit alleges the organization's headquarters has a history of racial discrimination toward their employees.
Young noted the, "very limited racial/ethnic diversity among the ETS staff at the Princeton office, particularly at the higher levels of the organization," as key evidence of his argument.
ETS spokesperson Tom Ewing responded to the claims with a written statement Friday.
"ETS does not comment on personnel matters, especially in legal cases, but we stand by our strong commitment to diversity in the workplace and to advancing learning worldwide," Ewing wrote.
Young's issues with the organization began with a paper on education put out by Young and his colleague, Maria Martiniello, who was Hispanic, the lawsuit said.
The paper included 12 suggestions for ETS to take in order to, "improve the education of Latino students in the United States."
Young claims those recommendations were deleted before the paper was made public and that ETS never acted on the suggestions.
"It concerned him very much, given the lack of diversity at ETS," Young's attorney, William Courtney said Thursday.
Martiniello was let go from her position with ETS in 2013 - the year after the paper was published - and filed a race discrimination complaint with the organization soon after, the lawsuit said. She could not be reached for comment Friday.
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In the suit Young also detailed issues he had with Scott Paris, the Vice President for Research who was hired in 2011. He claimed Paris, "engaged in workplace bullying and unethical treatment of employees."
Young said in the suit that Paris referred to James Wimbush, the Dean of the Graduate School at Indiana University, as "that Black fellow." He also claimed that Paris once said of his time working for a research institute in Singapore that he "didn't trust those people 'over there' to produce," the suit said.
ETS deferred questions about Paris and the rest of the lawsuit to their attorneys, who did not reply Friday.
In another incident in 2013, Young said a colleague, Dr. Mikyung Kim Wolfe, who is Korean, came to him very upset because, "Paris had taken to bullying her and was derisive about her job performance," the suit stated.
Young claimed that he reported the incident to ETS's human resources department but that he never heard back about his complaint.
When Young was let go a year later in 2014, ETS told him it was because a coworker complained that Young said something that made her uncomfortable, the suit stated.
"(Young's) termination was an act of retaliation by Paris, who approved the termination," the suit claimed. Young never met with human resources and was never questioned about his comment, the suit said.
For Young, his firing seemed like an act of discrimination - particularly because of his race and age.
"He didn't seem to have a voice there. That was his primary concern," Courtney said.
ETS as a company has been hit with claims of alleged racial bias in connection with the SAT.
In 2003 a writer for the Harvard Educational Review claimed the test was biased in favor of white students - something ETS categorically denied.
But the issue came up again years later when the Harvard Review released another study claiming the test was biased in their use of language.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.
