Is it legal to change someone's title before a layoff to avoid adverse impact?

Situation: A person is hired as a manager, then when the workload required two people, the manager voluntarily requested a senior staff role to focus on mentoring junior team members and addressing immediate needs of the organization. The now former manager suggested to the company that they bring in a director above him to manage the leadership team as well as champion the team's efforts.

During this time, another senior staff member was added to the team so now the former manager and the newer staff member are peers. A company-wide announcement was issued by the VP of the team detailing the former manager's new role.

The company has decided they need to layoff people across the company and for the purposes of the layoff changed the former manager's title from senior staff member back to manager. Now the manager has no peers. The former manager is an African-American male-40 years old. The only people on this team who were impacted were also the only two African-Americans on the team.

I can provide additional details if needed.

I guess there is no recourse for them purposely laying me off as a Recruiting Manager when I was actually a Senior Recruiter with no management responsibilities? They clearly did this so that I could not be compared to the other Senior Recruiter who just started with the company.

The job title can be changed at any time by the employer.

You are not legally entitled to any job title, or any position, for that matter.

A person's title can be changed at any time. One piece of information I don't see may be the reason for the change and may actually work to the manager's benefit. Most companies pay a severance upon layoff, and manager's usually get a different (and better) package than a Sr Staff member. Since you were a manager originally and chose to take a step back to better the company at the time, they may feel you should be entitled to the better package even though they need to do the layoff.

The company can change your title at any time.

That said, the layoff does sound like it might be a little shaky. Talk to your local EEOC office - they will look at all the details there isn't room for you to post here, and determine whether they think your situation demands further investigation. Actual job duties, not title, would probably enter into their questions.