The Employers’ Defense To Racial Harassment: Discount The Offensiveness Of Racial Comments

For more than two decades, our race discrimination lawyers in Sumter County, Florida have fought for the rights of employees who have been required to work in a racially hostile environment. Through their years of experience, our Sumter County, Florida race discrimination lawyers know that employers defend racial harassment cases by attempting to discount the offensiveness of racial comments. For example, employers will characterize racial comments as “only mildly offensive,” “slightly offensive at best,” “not particularly serious or threatening,” or a “mere offensive utterance.” The ultimate goal of employers when minimizing the offensiveness of racial comments is to eliminate the remarks from the court’s assessment of whether the acts of harassment were sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a racial hostile working environment. By eliminating some or all of the identified racial remarks from the court’s severe or pervasive calculus, employers then argue that the remaining acts of harassment are nothing more than isolated incidents which are insufficient to create a racial hostile working environment.

In this article, our race discrimination lawyers in Sumter County, Florida explain how the decision in Jones v. Fluor Facility & Plant Services, 2025 WL 707869 (6th Cir. Mar. 5, 2025) demonstrates that neither employers nor trial courts are permitted to remove racial comments from the severe or pervasive calculus by minimizing their offensiveness.

Racial Harassment Lawsuit

In that case, a man named Jones brought a racial harassment claim against his former employer, Fluor Facility & Plant Services, Inc. (“Fluor”), pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race. Under well-established law, racial harassment is a form of race discrimination forbidden by Title VII. To violate Title VII, racial harassment must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create a hostile working environment. Jones, who is African-American, claims that he was subjected to racial hostile work environment harassment in violation of Title VII.

In May 2020, Fluor hired Jones as a maintenance worker. Jones remained at Fluor until his suspension and eventual termination in March 2022. Throughout his employment with Fluor, Jones worked the night shift. About five or six people worked the night shift. Jones was the only African-American on the night shift during his tenure at Fluor.

Jones alleges that from the time he started on the night shift, his white co-workers made comments about the “color of his skin.” Jones claims that the “n-word” was used three times in his presence and that his co-workers told racist jokes. Jones also testified that: “boy was used a lot,” “I was told I was a rapper because I was black,” “I was told I made a lady uncomfortable because I was black,” and “I was told I played basketball because I was black.” Jones also claims that heard from his supervisors that his co-workers referred to him as “boy.”

In November 2020, Jones’ supervisor held a meeting to address alleged racist jokes and language in the workplace. Jones asserts that the “n-word” was used two times by a co-worker at the meeting. One co-worker allegedly said that employees should be able to call Jones the “n-word” because “this is construction,” and the slur was “a natural term that we use around here.” According to Jones’ supervisor, employees agreed at the meeting to stop harassing Jones. However, Jones contends that he faced additional harassment after the November 2020 meeting. For example, Jones maintains that the day after the meeting a co-worker “threw a wad of grease” on Jones’ car windshield.

Jones also claims that he was ostracized by his white co-workers throughout his tenure at Fluor. Jones alleges that employees avoid communicating with him about daily tasks, turned their back or left when he entered the breakroom, and denied him rides in the shared buggies employees drove around the workplace even when the buggies were not at capacity.

In March 2021, Jones filed a written statement with Fluor describing his co-workers’ conduct. Fluor began an investigation and concluded that while there was evidence of joking and horseplay amongst all night shift employees, including Jones, there was no evidence of any jokes of a racial nature after the November 2020 meeting.

Trial Court Reversed On Appeal

The trial court dismissed Jones’ racial hostile work environment harassment claim. The trial court concluded that the alleged racial harassment was not sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of Jones’ employment and create a hostile working environment. In reaching its conclusion, the trial court removed many of Jones’ allegations of racial harassment from the severe or pervasive calculus by discounting the offensiveness of the alleged racial comments. For example, the trial court found that referring to Jones as “boy” was “only a mere offensive utterance.” Likewise, the trial court ruled that Jones’ allegations of being skipped over for rides in buggies, being ignored in the breakroom, and stereotyping about rapping or basketball amounted “only to offensive utterances and social avoidance.” On appeal, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s decision and reinstated Jones’ racial hostile work environment harassment claim.

Unlike the reversed trial court, the Sixth Circuit did not discount or minimize the offensiveness of the alleged racial comments and racial behavior. For example, the appellate count pointed out that the trial court ignored binding precedent holding that “although not explicitly racial, a white colleague referring to an adult African-American colleague as ‘boy,’ without modifiers or qualifications can qualify as evidence of impermissible bias.” Likewise, the court of appeals explained that although “comments referencing Jones being a rapper or a basketball player may not be explicitly racial out of context,” these comments “undoubtedly reflected African-American stereotypes such that a rational factfinder could find that they would not have been made but for Jones’ race.” The appellate court also found that “we can impute racial animus to the ostracization that Jones faced from his co-workers.” Thus, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the trial court erred in eliminating this evidence from the severe or pervasive calculus.

Sumter County Race Discrimination Lawyers

Based in Ocala, Florida and representing workers throughout Florida, our racial discrimination attorneys in Sumter County, Florida have litigated race discrimination cases in Florida courts for more than twenty years. If you have endured race discrimination in the workplace or have questions about your rights as a race discrimination victim, please contact our office for a free consultation with our racial discrimination lawyers in Sumter County, Florida. Our employee rights law firm takes race discrimination cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that there are no attorney’s fees incurred unless there is a recovery, and our attorney’s fees come solely from the monetary award that you recover.