Racial harassment claim rejected despite racial slurs, Klan graffiti

In Herman Jackson v. Flint Ink, 03-2189 (8th Cir. 6/7/04), the Eight Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the employer, holding that racially offensive slurs were infrequent and few in number and thus not sufficient to establish a hostile work environment.

The court also held that that burning cross graffiti in the company’s locker room was a generically threatening expression of sympathy with the Klan, not a death threat aimed directly at plaintiff, and as such not sufficient to create a jury issue as to whether plaintiff was subjected to a hostile work environment. Specifically, the following evidence recited by the court was insufficient to preclude summary judgment:

Mr. Jackson alleges that he heard . . . his supervisor . . . refer to him as “that damn nigger” after an altercation during which Mr. Jackson threatened two co-workers after one of them spit on his foot or somewhere in his work area. Mr. Jackson also testified that on one occasion as he was leaving the office of . . . the plant manager he heard [him] use the term “black” or “damn black” in some unspecified context.

In addition to these two incidents, Mr. Jackson testified to four instances in which his co-workers had made racially offensive remarks: One co-worker used the slang phrase “nigger-rigging” . . . Another co-worker called Mr. Jackson a “nigger.” A third co-worker, on one occasion, expressed his dislike for music that Mr. Jackson was listening to by stating that “[w]e don’t listen to that damn black music around here, nigger shit, radio.” The same co-worker, during the incident in which Mr. Jackson was concededly “in [the] face” of another co-worker who had spit in his work area, pulled the other co-worker away and exclaimed “fucking nigger.”

Finally, Mr. Jackson testified that “KKK sign” graffiti appeared in both the shower area and on a wall near the back door in the chemical area at Flint Ink. He offered pictures of this graffiti into evidence, each showing a drawing of a burning cross surrounded by three “K”‘s. Mr. Jackson testified, regarding the graffiti on the back wall, that “they got it like it’s burning and it seemed like they want to put me on a cross and burn me up. I’m from Mississippi, you know, and all this stuff is scary, you know, it’s very scary.” . . .

Researchers note: the court reviews a number of other racial harassment cases before concluding:

The result in several of our previous cases involving racial slurs and harassment in the workplace has turned upon the pervasiveness . . .of the offensive conduct. “Unquestionably, a working environment dominated by racial slurs constitutes a violation of Title VII.” . . . But “[o]ffhand comments and isolated incidents of offensive conduct (unless extremely serious) do not constitute a hostile work environment.” . . .

The offensive racial slurs in the record were infrequent and few in number, and some of them appear to have been offhand remarks not directed specifically at Mr. Jackson; there is no evidence of a “steady barrage of opprobrious racial comment.” Standing alone, we think that the derogatory language identified by Mr. Jackson would not violate Title VII, which does not “impose a code of workplace civility.” . . .

The burning cross graffiti, however, makes this a closer case . . . Read more

Of course, none of this stuff should be going on, and no employer that hears of it should tolerate it.

Having said that, cases like this illustrate that harassment allegations that plaintiffs’lawyers are very artful at making sound extremely shocking are not necessarily cause for forking over big settlements. At least in federal court, summary judgment remains a powerful weapon in favor of employers in these cases.

Related Reading:

General, Organic, & Biological Chemistry

Lab Manual for General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry (2nd Edition)

General, Organic, and Biochemistry: An Applied Approach