Last year, a jury hit the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the professional association many HR practitioners look to for certifications and guidance, with a $10 million punitive damages verdict. Now its own insurance company says that’s SHRM’s bill to pay, not theirs.
On July 21, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted, publicly, to kill sixty years of federal race, sex, and national origin reporting. Cue the sad violins. This is happening.
An employee accused his manager of anti-Black bias over comments made eight months earlier. A federal appeals court said the comments were about politics, not race, and the case fell apart.
She said the training singled out white employees as inherently racist. Her own testimony said otherwise, and that’s what sank her case.
An employer investigated a racial harassment complaint, offered a transfer, and watched the harassment continue. A federal appeals court just sent the hostile work environment claims to a jury.
She filed an EEOC charge. She just didn’t file the right one.
A racial slur used in 2007 was still admissible evidence at a 2024 trial. The employer’s failure to address it helped produce a $21 million verdict.
The city’s civil-service commission told it to follow its own hiring policies. It didn’t. It still won.
The court called it “repugnant and racially hostile.” It still wasn’t enough. A recent appellate decision affirming summary judgment for the employer on a hostile work environment claim is a useful reminder of how high the severe-or-pervasive bar actually is.
The bar for a hostile work environment claim is “extremely high.” A White correctional officer just found out how high.
The Employer Handbook Blog