Worker receives $67K following manager's alleged race harassment

Dive Brief:

A Louisiana-based special meats store agreed to settle allegations of race harassment from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency announced Jan. 19.
According to the agency's lawsuit, the store's general manager used derogatory language, including racial slurs, when speaking to an employee. When the supervisor used one such slur repeatedly and in front of other employees, the store dismissed the worker — not the supervisor — for the day. The employee eventually resigned.
The store will pay the former worker $67,500 in back pay and damages, per its settlement with EEOC. It will also carry out a training, revise its policies and report regularly to EEOC.

Dive Insight:

Harassment at work can violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal employment laws, according to EEOC. Harassment can be based on race, sex and a number of other factors. It's considered unlawful when it's a condition of employment or when it's so severe or pervasive that it creates a hostile work environment, EEOC says in guidance.

The standard for hostile work environment has created some confusion, especially as it relates to racial slurs. A worker asked the U.S. Supreme Court last January to revisit an opinion from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that determined that an employer did not create a working environment "sufficiently abusive to constitute a hostile work environment" when it permitted a slur to appear on an elevator for months, despite complaints from the plaintiff.

But the Supreme Court declined to review the worker's case, leaving his question — and the 5th Circuit's ruling — intact.

Other courts have weighed in on the topic, however. In 2019, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling that the use of four racial slurs in a worker's presence over one year did not create an abusive work environment. The racial slurs, though used somewhat sporadically, established a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the worker faced abuse. In its decision, the 9th Circuit quoted two of its previous decisions, which concluded that the n-word was "highly offensive and demeaning" and "perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English."