In a Twitter post from June 30, comedian Rickey Smiley accused an Uber driver of discriminating against him. In the video, Smiley could be heard talking with another person about how some Uber drivers operate. At one point the person tells him, “I done got denied a couple times. Trying to go home sometimes, like, when I first started and didn’t get my bike, a couple of dudes… they pick it up, and then they see you…He didn’t even acknowledge you. He barely rolled down his window. They be doing that.”
After Smiley posted the video to his account, the official Uber account responded to Smiley in a tweet on Saturday. The tweet read: “Hi, Rickey — we have a zero-tolerance policy toward discrimination, and this is not okay. We’re so sorry this happened, and we are investigating this right away.”
Look y'all… Anyone else dealt with @Uber #discrimination before?? #Uber pic.twitter.com/ugn7K5ZFSN
— Rickey Smiley (@RickeySmiley) July 1, 2023
Other users chimed in with their own experiences of discriminatory Uber drivers in Smiley’s replies, as is usually the case when ride-sharing companies are being accused of discriminatory practices. Uber is currently in some legal hot water of its own regarding its driver rating practices. According to Reuters, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recommended to the 9th US Court of Appeals that a survey of thousands of drivers conducted by the lawyers of Thomas Liu, an Asian-American who drove for Uber is enough evidence for his case alleging that non-white drivers are kicked off the platform for low ratings more often than white drivers are.
Corroborating Liu’s account is a joint report from Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus and Rideshare Drivers United. According to Wired, the report surveyed 810 drivers and found that 69% of non-white drivers faced either temporary or permanent suspension as opposed to 57% of white Uber drivers.
Uber’s website declares its commitment to being an anti-racist company on its website with sections dedicated to anti-racist training which it claims is available to both its drivers and riders. However, whenever incidents like these occur and drivers and the company itself get called out for racism and discrimination it calls those commitments rightly into question. In 2021, Uber was sued by the Department of Justice due to its practices in direct violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. As a result of losing the lawsuit, last year, the tech company had to pay millions of dollars in damages to thousands of affected riders.