One might expect that professional workplaces -- such as law offices and medical practices -- would be places of high professional conduct. Unfortunately, that is too often not the case. Whether it is support staff or high-level supervisory employees, workers in professional offices frequently engage in various forms of verbal harassment, creating a hostile work environment in the process. If you have been the victim of this kind of harassment based on your race, you do not have to tolerate it. You can fight back with the aid of an experienced New York racial harassment lawyer.
If you need to pursue a racial harassment case, you need to have several things, as a recent hostile work environment case from Long Island illustrates.
M.G. was an Afro-Latina woman and a Licensed Practical Nurse who began working for a Suffolk County medical practice in 2016. The nurse’s lawsuit alleged a workplace peppered with frequent racism. These alleged incidents included the front desk associate using the N-word, referring to the union representative as a “super black ghetto [B-word].” On one occasion, after hearing that a newspaper featured the brother of a black colleague, the front desk associate retorted, “Did he murder somebody?”
Additionally, one of the medical assistants that the practice hired in 2020 or 2021 allegedly treated minority coworkers rudely and disrespectfully. She allegedly made comments like “Blacks will never amount to anything” and “All of the Spanish are illegals.” The assistant also allegedly stated that she was out for M.G.’s “blood” and that if the employer fired her, she would take M.G. “down with her.”
All of this evidence, when put together, represented a viable case of a hostile work environment. As the court explained, the law requires that a worker who has alleged a racially hostile work environment demonstrate that her workplace was “so severely permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that the terms and conditions of his or her employment were thereby altered.”
Additionally, establishing a hostile work environment claim involves both objective and subjective elements. That means that, to win your case, you must show that the conduct about which you complained created an objectively hostile environment and that you subjectively perceived the situation as abusive.
Courts will consider several factors in deciding whether a workplace is objectively hostile. These factors include the misconduct’s frequency, severity, its context (threatening or humiliating vs. merely offensive), and whether it interferes with work performance.
Given the extremity of the racial animus displayed in the comments and the frequency with which they occurred, the comments were enough to give M.G. a viable case. While the federal standard requires only that the harassment be severe or pervasive, the court in M.G.’s case concluded that her harassment was severe and pervasive. Many of the comments “directly showed racial animus,” and some of them contained a threatening nature, as well.
Based on all of that, M.G. had more than enough to proceed with her federal hostile work environment claim under Title VII. It is important to note that this case took place in Suffolk County. Had the harassment occurred in New York City, M.G. would have been able to make a racially hostile work environment claim under the New York City Human Rights Law. Under a NYCHRL claim, M.G. would not have had to establish severe or pervasive racial harassment, but rather show that she experienced being treated “less well” based on her race.
You do not have to suffer in silence if you are experiencing a hostile work environment. You can take steps to protect yourself, starting with retaining skilled legal counsel. The experienced New York City hostile work environment attorneys at Phillips & Associates PLLC are here to help you. Our knowledgeable team has successfully fought for countless clients injured by this form of misconduct, and we are ready to go to work for you. To find out more, contact us online or at (866) 229-9441 to set up a free and confidential consultation today.