Single Racial Slur May Be Enough To Establish Harassment

Castleberry v. STI Group, ___F.3d___(3d Cir. July 14, 2017), is an important case to be aware of. This case was brought by two against their staffing agency (STI) and the client company where they worked (Chesapeake). Plaintiff's allegations were as follows:

"Plaintiffs allege that, when they arrived at work on several occasions, someone had anonymously written 'don't be black on the right of way' on the sign-in sheets. They also assert that although they have significant experience working on pipelines (and more so than their non-African-American coworkers), they were only permitted to clean around the pipelines rather than work on them. They claim that, when working on a fence-removal project, a supervisor told Castleberry and his coworkers that if they had 'n[****]r-rigged' the fence, they would be fired. Seven coworkers confirmed that occurred. Following this last incident, Plaintiffs reported the offensive language to a superior and were fired two weeks later without explanation. They were rehired shortly thereafter, but then terminated again for 'lack of work.'"

The court then goes on to hold that a single slur can be actionable, reasoning:

"The Supreme Court's decision to adopt the 'severe or pervasive' standard-thereby abandoning a 'regular' requirement - lends support that an isolated incident of discrimination (if severe) can suffice to state a claim for harassment ... Otherwise, why create a disjunctive standard where alleged "severe" conduct - even if not at all 'pervasive' - can establish a plaintiff's harassment claim? Defendants would have us read that alternative element out of the standard. We may not do so."