What happened
Roberts v. Texaco, filed in 1994, was a class action by Black employees alleging discrimination in pay and promotion. On November 4, 1996, the New York Times reported that executives had been taped discussing how to impede that suit. Rev. Jesse Jackson called a national boycott, the Los Angeles Times reported on November 13. Texaco denied some characterizations of the tapes. Chairman Peter Bijur apologized.
On November 15, 1996, Texaco agreed to a settlement the Los Angeles Times described the next day as possibly the largest of a racial-discrimination employment case: $115 million in cash for about 1,400 Black employees, raises of at least 10 percent, and an equality-and-tolerance task force, valued by plaintiffs’ lawyers at $176 million. Contemporaneous accounts put the class at about 1,400–1,500 and the raise piece near $26 million over five years. The Washington Post reported on March 27, 1997, that a judge approved the deal. Those are settlement terms, not findings after trial. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001; this file is about that predecessor.
The Cookout read
Mixed. The tapes and the boycott are why the country was watching. The cash fund and raises for Black employees are large, dated, and labeled as a class settlement—not a voluntary Chevron racial-equity bank, and not a jury’s word that every allegation was proved. This file will not unwrite the tapes because of the check, or unwrite the check because of the tapes.