Case Highlights
- A lawsuit was filed Monday, July 21, in U.S. District Court alleging Fannie Mae engaged in employment discrimination.
- More than 60 plaintiffs say they were told not to come to work, then were fired on a Microsoft Teams call.
- Plaintiffs allege they were accused of committing fraud by donating to certain charitable organizations.
- The complaint claims Fannie Mae provided no evidence of the alleged fraud, and the company has not yet responded.
By Samuel Lopez – USA Herald
A group of more than 60 Indian‑American U.S. citizens has leveled explosive allegations against the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), accusing the mortgage giant of firing longtime employees on the basis of nationality and age. Filed July 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the lawsuit paints a stark picture of summary terminations conducted without warning and suggests a troubling pattern of bias at a government‑sponsored enterprise.
Fannie Mae, chartered by Congress in 1938 to provide liquidity, stability, and affordability to the U.S. housing market, employs over 7,000 people across multiple departments. On April 8, 2025, the company announced it had terminated more than 100 workers for “unethical conduct,” including alleged fraud uncovered during an internal investigation. It remains unclear whether that action is tied to the lawsuit filed by Executive Law Partners, PLLC on behalf of the plaintiffs. Milton C. Johns of Executive Law Partners lodged the complaint—Case No. 1:25‑cv‑02346—on behalf of employees who had dedicated years, and in some cases decades, to Fannie Mae.
At the heart of the complaint is an accusation that Fannie Mae engaged in both nationality‑ and age‑based discrimination. Plaintiffs—all U.S. citizens of Indian origin and all but one over age 40—claim they were “summarily fired” on April 3, 2025, “without notice, warning, or due process” for supposedly violating Fannie Mae’s Charitable Giving program by committing fraud. Many employees spoke Telugu, a language prevalent in southern India, Sri Lanka, and parts of Pakistan, and had served the company for 10 to 22 years. The complaint highlights that “all but a handful were over the age of 40 and most over the age of 50,” suggesting older workers bore the brunt of the terminations.
Rather than a traditional termination meeting, employees received an email the day before April 3 instructing them not to come into the office but to join a Microsoft Teams call. “Plaintiffs joined the Teams call along with what they believe were at least 80 other people,” the complaint states, only to be told they were being fired “with cause for violating Fannie Mae’s Charitable Giving program for fraud.” The abruptness of the mass termination—delivered over video conference and without individualized explanation—underscores the plaintiffs’ contention that the process was designed to humiliate and marginalize them.
Fannie Mae’s Charitable Giving program permits employees to make donations to approved organizations, with a matching scheme administered through an internal portal. Plaintiffs allege all referenced donations—none exceeding $5,000—were made to groups explicitly endorsed by Fannie Mae, many dedicated to Indian cultural and charitable causes. Several gifts date back to 2018, and some employees had donated repeatedly over the years. The complaint contends that despite this track record, “Fannie Mae has still provided no evidence to support their claims of fraud against any of Plaintiffs, jointly or severally.”
In the aftermath of their termination, plaintiffs petitioned Fannie Mae to reconsider its decision. According to the complaint, the company replied that plaintiffs “had made gifts that they knew or should have known violated their policy, or that they knew that other employees had made gifts that Plaintiffs knew or should have known violated their policy,” yet “no explanation of individual conduct was ever given to any Plaintiff.” Without due process or individualized findings, former employees say they were left with a vague, sweeping accusation of fraud that damages their professional reputations and livelihoods.
To date, Fannie Mae has not filed any public response to the lawsuit. The company’s silence raises questions about its internal practices for handling allegations of misconduct, particularly when they intersect with protected characteristics such as nationality and age. If the plaintiffs’ allegations hold, the case could expose systemic flaws in how government‑sponsored enterprises investigate and discipline employees, potentially prompting wider scrutiny of corporate diversity and inclusion policies.
Should the court grant class‑certification or otherwise favor the plaintiffs, Fannie Mae may face significant damages, injunctive relief, and a mandate to overhaul its charitable giving and termination procedures. The case also carries broader relevance for employers nationwide, spotlighting the hazards of remote mass terminations without clear, evidence‑based justifications, when necessary. For the Indian‑American community and older workers, the lawsuit underscores ongoing concerns about subtle and overt biases in the workplace.
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