Dive Brief:
- A federal judge dismissed March 6 a lawsuit in which a White former professor of Penn State Abington alleged that the university maintained a racially hostile work environment through a series of incidents that involved discussions on race, antiracism and critical race theory as well as a series of internal complaints involving the plaintiff.
- In De Piero v. Pennsylvania State University, the plaintiff said the incidents — which included, among other things, campuswide emails about the murder of George Floyd and invitations to review scholarly materials and converse about antiracism in education — formed a hostile environment in which it became “impossible” for him to do his work. The plaintiff also faced internal complaints from other faculty alleging that he had harassed other staff and discriminated on the bases of sex and political ideology.
- Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the alleged conduct was neither severe nor pervasive enough to establish a hostile work environment claim under federal or state antidiscrimination laws, granting summary judgment in favor of the university.
Dive Insight:
In the decision, Beetlestone compared the allegedly harassing conduct faced by the plaintiff to that explored in hostile work environment cases litigated by other courts. Beetlestone said that the events described in the plaintiff’s complaint “while unpleasant to him, share little in common with these cases” and that none of the events were sufficiently extreme to sustain allegations of severe harassment.
“To the contrary, several courts have granted summary judgment on claims predicated on similar comments made to White plaintiffs, finding that the conduct was insufficiently severe as a matter of law—even when such comments were accompanied by downgraded performance reviews, altered work responsibilities, or threats of retaliation,” Beetlestone wrote.
The judge held similarly with respect to the pervasiveness of the alleged incidents, some of which, she noted, were not directed at the plaintiff personally nor could a reasonable jury determine that any of the incidents were physically threatening to him.
Though the plaintiff alleged that he was “singled out for ridicule and humiliation” because of his race, Beetlestone said that the university did not require the plaintiff to opt into discussions or to respond to any emails or materials about subjects such as antiracism. She also held that no rational trier of fact could find that the complained-of conduct unreasonably interfered with the plaintiff’s work performance.
Allegations of so-called “reverse discrimination” by majority-group employees are expected to increase in the foreseeable future thanks in part to renewed public scrutiny of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to attorneys who previously spoke to HR Dive. Some federal courts have allowed majority-group plaintiffs to proceed with discrimination lawsuits in recent weeks, but litigation against employers’ DEI programming has seen mixed results for plaintiffs.