I prefaced my original thought with something about my untrained legal opinion or something like that --- but I can read.
Regardless this particular case or it's outcome, or who voted what, who agreed or disagreed --- she wrote what she wrote
"The n-word is an egregious racial epithet. That said, Smith can’t win simply by proving that the word was uttered,” she wrote. “He must also demonstrate that Colbert’s use of this word altered the conditions of his employment and created a hostile or abusive working environment.”
Did she really write that the use of the N word by a supervisor does not constitute a hostile work environment ?
Is the bar making Mr Smith pick cotton to be evidence of hostile workplace ?
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I asked earlier and received no specific response, Say a supervisor is being sued in court by a Jewish person assaulted with the K word or a Latino the S word or LGBTQ F word or, a woman accuses the use of the B word, can and would said supervisor use this opinion as a defense ?
My limited legal expertise says yes
There's something called a legal term of art. These are words that might have one meaning in the general vernacular but another in a legal context. A hostile work environment means one thing if you're just talking about it in general. Legally, there's a specific definition.
Here's the SCOTUS's definition of a hostile work environment, "When the workplace is permeated with "discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult," 477 U.S. at 65, that is "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment," id., at 67 (internal brackets and quotation marks omitted), Title VII is violated."
Harris v. Forklift Sys., 510 U.S. 17 (1993).
So there must be intimidation, ridicule, and insult permeating a work place that is severe or pervasive enough to alter the victim's employment and create a hostile work environment.
Generally, courts require the conduct be severe AND pervasive as is evidenced in the case Mack v. Port Auth where the New York Southern District Court stated the requirement to be "that the conduct was so severe and pervasive that a reasonable person would find the environment hostile or abusive on account of race" Mack v. Port Auth., 225 F. Supp. 2d 376, 389 (S.D.N.Y 2002).
Single instances can be sufficient to establish a hostile work environment but those cases tend to be things like a woman being raped by her boss for a hostile work environment based on sex.
In fact, ACB is far from the only judge to state that a single utterance is insufficient. "a single "utterance of an epithet" does not constitute a hostile work environment"
Wise v. Ferriero, 842 F. Supp. 2d 120, 126 (DC 2012); "a single utterance of an epithet, while offensive, is not sufficient to establish a hostile work environment,"
Maldonado v. Invensys Bldg. Sys., 157 Fed. Appx. 904, 906 (7th Cir. 2005).
And if we need go further, the SCOTUS itself has already spoken on this issue. "mere utterance of an . . . epithet which engenders offensive feelings in a employee," ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted) does not sufficiently affect the conditions of employment to implicate Title VII"
Harris v. Forklift Sys., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993).
So ACB was actually following SCOTUS precedent in that case.