Management allegedly called her concerns 'imposter syndrome' — then demoted her
A Berkshire Hathaway-branded real estate brokerage is facing allegations that it denied a Black employee training routinely given to non-Black peers, then let her go after she spoke up.
Seleka Kerr, a former Market President at Tropical Realty & Investments, Inc. d/b/a Berkshire Hathaway, filed a federal lawsuit on April 13 in the Middle District of Florida claiming race and color discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment. The case, Kerr v. Tropical Realty & Investments, Inc. d/b/a Berkshire Hathaway, et al., No. 8:26-cv-01068, names both Tropical Realty and its affiliate Capstone Tropical Holdings, Inc. as defendants. No determination on the merits has been made.
According to the court filing, Kerr was hired as an Assistant Market President in January 2023 and moved into the Market President role at the company's Riverview office that September. She alleges that other new Market Presidents — who were not Black — were paired with mentors and given a full week of in-office shadowing with experienced leaders. Kerr says she got none of that. Her supervisor, Casey Bryan, allegedly told her not to be in the same office as the colleague best positioned to train her, which she says effectively shut the door on any meaningful onboarding.
The filing paints a picture of an employee left to figure things out on her own. Kerr alleges she inherited an office that had already lost roughly $14.6 million in production due to agent departures, transfers, and her own transition out of a producing role. Instead of a structured turnaround plan, she says the company's answer was to have her make more cold calls. When she brought in outside recruiting advice and raised those ideas at a May 2024 leadership meeting, Bryan allegedly shut the conversation down with, "I 100% disagree." A day later, according to the filing, Bryan imposed a 90-day ban on workplace communication between Kerr and her closest internal support.
What may catch the attention of HR leaders is what happened when Kerr escalated. She alleges that on more than one occasion, when she flagged the gap between her experience and what non-Black peers received, management dismissed her concerns as "imposter syndrome." In October 2024, the company's owners allegedly acknowledged the situation was unusual and admitted they had not given Kerr the support she needed. One owner, Allen S. Crumbley, allegedly told her the company had financially harmed her by placing her in the role without proper backing.
Yet according to the filing, nothing changed. In January 2025, Kerr was demoted to a part-time "Market President Liaison" position with reduced hours and no bonus eligibility. She was then directed to train her replacement — a white male brought in to take over her former role. Her employment ended on or about March 27, 2025, with the company citing lack of production.
One detail stands out: Kerr alleges the company tracked Market President performance using a color-coded system, and she ranked in the "yellow" tier while most of her peers sat in the lower "red" category. Those peers, she says, were kept on. She was not.
The case is still in its earliest stages, but the allegations raise questions that HR teams across industries would do well to sit with — particularly around whether training and development resources are being distributed equitably, and what happens when employees raise that concern.
