Tesla Inc. can require an employee to arbitrate claims that he faced race harassment, lost out on promotions because he is Black, and was constructively discharged by the auto maker after appearing in an Audi Super Bowl ad, a Los Angeles federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Naymon Frank must also arbitrate his meal break, rest break, and other claims under California labor law as well as his fraud claims, the US District Court for the Central District of California said. Frank, a former NFL player, signed a job offer letter that contained Tesla’s standard employment arbitration agreement when he was hired as an owner adviser in July 2016 and he didn’t show the agreement was unenforceable, the court said.

That’s so even though the pact contains some degree of both procedural and substantive unconscionability, in that Tesla didn’t provide Frank with the applicable arbitration rules when he accepted the agreement. The pact also includes a one-sided carve-out for confidentiality and intellectual property claims that unfairly favors the company, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong said.

The procedural unconscionability resulting from the failure to give Frank the arbitration organization’s rules was minimal because Frank, in opposing the company’s motion to compel arbitration, didn’t take issue with the rules themselves, the judge said. There is thus “little concern that the...

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