NYC – I believe I was discriminated against at work, how do you actually prove it?

Hi everyone,

I’m based in NYC and was recently terminated from a business development role. I’ve been going through everything that happened, and at this point I genuinely believe I was being treated differently, and possibly discriminated against, compared to others on my team.

I had a colleague in the exact same role, and over time I noticed a clear pattern. He was consistently given more opportunities, more support, and better accounts, while I was often removed from opportunities I was originally included in. For example, I was scheduled to attend a conference and then was later told I wasn’t needed anymore and someone else would go instead.

In another situation, I spent a lot of time building an account and creating momentum, and then it was taken away from me and given to him. In return, I was assigned a slower, underperforming account. Later on, those same weaker accounts were used to justify my performance, even though they were already struggling before I got them.

One of the explanations I was given was that the client “spoke Spanish,” so it made more sense for him to handle it. But in reality, everyone on the client side spoke English, and the work didn’t require Spanish at all. It didn’t feel like a real business reason.

Also, my manager, her manager, and that colleague are all from the same background, and there were multiple times where they would speak Spanish on calls while I was present, then tell me something along the lines of “you can drop off now” so they could continue.This is just how things go daily , I know it’s not enough to prove discrimination, but that made things feel even more off.

There was never a clear performance improvement plan either. I raised concerns internally and even reached out to HR asking for a conversation about how I was being treated, but shortly after that I was terminated without any real structure, timeline, or support to improve.

I do have documentation, including emails showing I was initially included in opportunities and later removed, performance-related emails, and my outreach to HR before my termination. What I don’t have is any direct or explicit statement of discrimination.

So my question is, for anyone in New York who’s been through something similar, how do you actually prove discrimination in situations like this where it’s more about a pattern of unequal treatment rather than something clearly stated?

Appreciate any thoughts or experiences (no sarcasm please)

🙏