For the most part, people generally agree that racial harassment has no place in the workplace. While there are some libertarians who believe that, as deplorable as it may be, it ought not be a government matter, even they generally believe that that racial harassment itself is not morally acceptable. While there is valid concern of such rules going to far, as with stray comments taken out of context or a stray offensive joke or so, an actual hostile environment created with the blessing of the bosses running the show is odious to the vast majority of decent Americans.
Sadly, just such harassment, targeted against one racial group, has been not only pushed by “DEI” loving corporate managers, but even pushed by the Federal government itself: Implicit Bias Trainings, and other such similar training to convince people that Whites have a different way of knowing that was oppressive.
A recent court case, Chislett v. N.Y. City Dep’t of Ed., resulted a hostile work environment claim could go forward when it involved training that caste one race as problematic compared to others, in this case the race being “White”.
From the decision:
The test for a hostile work environment involves “both objective and subjective components: the conduct complained of must be severe or pervasive enough that a reasonable person would find it hostile or abusive, and the victim must subjectively perceive the work environment to be abusive.” … Drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, a rational juror could find that discriminatory conduct at the DOE was sufficiently severe and pervasive to have created a hostile work environment…. Chislett set forth sufficient evidence for a rational juror to find that she was repeatedly exposed to racial harassment at her workplace throughout 2018 and 2019.
First, Chislett presented evidence from which a rational jury could find that racist comments were expressed during bias trainings. For example, instructors mentioned several times that the “values of [w]hite culture are supremacist.” Similarly, during one training session, Ababio-Fernandez, Senior Executive Director of the OEA [DOE’s Office of Equity & Access], declared: “There is white toxicity in the air, and we all breathe it in.” In the sessions, there was persistent messaging to the effect that white culture is generally “[d]efensive[];” “[e]ntitle[d];” “[p]aternalis[tic];” “[p]ower [h]oard[ers];” and “[p]rivilege[d].”
Further, there was physical segregation of white employees and singling out of staff by race during one training session as participants were ordered as to racial privilege associated with whiteness and physically “lined up to reveal the dividing ‘color line of privileges that favored whites.'” Negative generalizations and stereotypes about white people were also targeted specifically at Chislett during the trainings. For instance, during a Q&A session, instructors told Chislett that her “interest in excellence was perfectionism and consistent with white supremacy.” On the question of the objectivity of considering the training environment hostile and abusive, it is pertinent that one of Chislett’s co-workers was similarly upset about the racial generalizations and that another regarded the DOE as “an extremely hostile environment for white individuals.” {[And t]he fact that the purpose of the sessions was to combat race discrimination does not excuse the alleged presence of race discrimination in the conduct of the sessions.}
And yes, racial struggle sessions as part n’ parcel of workplace interactions was made policy:
Content from the trainings also spilled over into workplace interactions. OEA employees directed terminology from the trainings at Chislett, for example telling her that she was “socialized as a white person to be defensive.” In conversations, Chislett’s subordinates frequently spoke of the stereotypical “presumed values” of Caucasians, a perception frequently expressed in the training sessions.
OEA employees were expected to have racial conversations in group settings approximately once a month. At an internal meeting on September 24, 2018, Shannon Maltovsky, Senior Director of Anti-Bias and School Support, shared PowerPoint slides listing ground rules for the office as they began to have “more conversations about race.” Chislett described the rules as explaining that “whites who wanted to withdraw or not participate in order to be safe were demonstrating white fragility, and it was no longer [the] right [of white people] to be safe in the workplace.”
While there is concern over “employees’ speech to the workplace at large” being unduely restricted, this is not applicable when the harassment is directed, in this case by the people running the workplace against individuals based on their race. Even if you think it a bad law, it is better for a bad law to be neutrally and equally applied than an inequality of treatment in the name of “racial justice”.
The full decision can be read here, or below:
Chislett v. N.Y. City Dep't of Ed. – 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by ThePoliticalHat
