The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently permitted a Caucasian employee to move forward with a hostile work environment claim based on evidence alleging that colleagues made racist comments during bias trainings. The District Court had previously dismissed the case in favor of the employer.

The plaintiff’s alleged evidence included that:

  1. subordinates denounced her for allegedly “holding employees of color back,” and when she objected, she was “accused” of being “white and fragile,”
  2. the employer implemented an “equity agenda” to tackle racial and economic disparities among students and reportedly stated that plaintiff needed to “get on board with [the] equity platform or leave,”
  3. the employer implemented implicit bias trainings whereby an instructor told participants that “white colleagues must take a step back and yield to colleagues of color” and “recognize that values of [w]hite culture are supremacist,”
  4. the person who developed the trainings reportedly stated “[t]here is white toxicity in the air, and we all breathe it in,” and
  5. employees were expected to have racial conversations in group settings approximately once a month.

The Second Circuit held that a rational juror could find that the alleged discriminatory conduct was sufficiently severe and pervasive to have created a hostile work environment. The court reminded that there is no “threshold magic number of harassing incidents,” and the plaintiff set forth sufficient evidence for a rational juror to find that she was repeatedly exposed to racial harassment at her workplace.

This case stands as a reminder to employers to:

  1. ensure that trainings are legally compliant and do not include accusations, stereotypes or conclusory assertions about any protected classes recognized under federal, state and/or local law; and
  2. use best efforts to guide respectful and constructive discussions among employees around these topics.