Discrimination Trainings Can Trigger Hostile Work Environment, Says Second Circuit

Mandatory discrimination trainings can provide the basis for a hostile work environment claim, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held.

An educator employed by the New York City Department of Education (DOE), Leslie Chislett, a white female, supervised a diverse team as the executive director of the “AP for All” program.

Early on, there was racial tension on her team, and one subordinate accused her of microaggressions toward people of color. Several of her subordinates denounced her for allegedly “holding employees of color back” and, when she objected, she was accused of being “white and fragile.”

When a new chancellor arrived at the DOE in 2018, racial conflict escalated, according to Chislett. An “equity agenda” was implemented to tackle racial and economic disparities, with mandatory implicit bias trainings for DOE staff.

During the trainings, instructors mentioned several times that the “values of white culture are supremacist,” while one announced “[t]here is white toxicity in the air, and we all breathe it in.” The trainings included persistent messaging that white culture is generally defensive, entitled, paternalistic, power hoarding and privileged. At times, attendees were also physically separated by race, with white employees lined up to reveal the dividing “color line of privilege that favored whites.”

Negative generalizations and stereotypes about white people were also specifically targeted at Chislett during the trainings.

Content from the trainings spilled over into workplace interactions, and several other white coworkers began to perceive the environment as hostile. When Chislett questioned why a black subordinate was late to a meeting that she was supposed to be helping lead, she responded, “How dare you approach me out of your white privilege!”

Chislett repeatedly complained about the environment and the trainings, but nothing changed. Her supervisory responsibilities were removed. Chislett spoke to a reporter who wrote a series of articles about the equity agenda.

After employees complained that if Chislett was not willing to do the equity work, she “should just go,” Chislett resigned.

Chislett then sued the DOE and the chancellor, alleging a claim of Section 1983 racial discrimination under three theories: that she was demoted pursuant to a municipal policy that made race a determinative factor in employment decisions; that she suffered a hostile work environment fostered by mandatory implicit bias trainings; and that she was constructively discharged. 

The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all three theories. Chislett appealed and, while the Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment on the constructive discharge and demotion claims, it reversed on her hostile work environment claim.

“Viewing the ‘totality of the circumstances,’ Chislett raised genuine disputes of material fact about whether the workplace was racially hostile and whether such hostility was the product of a municipal policy,” the court wrote. “Drawing all reasonable inferences in [Chislett’s] favor, a rational juror could find that discriminatory conduct at the DOE was sufficiently severe and pervasive to have created a hostile work environment.”

Chislett presented evidence from which a rational jury could find that racist comments were expressed during bias trainings, the court said, with persistent messaging that white culture is generally defensive, entitled and privileged; these negative generalizations and stereotypes about white people were also directed specifically at Chislett.

In addition, a reasonable juror could find that there were racialized comments expressed outside the trainings, with a subordinate calling Chislett racist and another labeling her as “white and fragile.”

“The presence of such racialized conflicts and the frequent accusations that Chislett was operating out of white privilege and supremacy for performing ordinary supervisory responsibilities further support her hostile work environment claim,” the court said.

Chislett also presented evidence of comments expressed to another DOE employee of partially white parentage that a reasonable juror could find racially discriminatory.

“From this ‘mosaic’ of evidence, a rational juror could find that Chislett experienced a racially hostile work environment,” the court wrote. “Collectively, Chislett presented evidence of racially-charged statements expressed during trainings, in meetings, and about another employee in her presence, creating a genuine dispute of material fact about whether the workplace was racially hostile. As such, ‘whether the conduct taken together created a work environment that was sufficiently hostile to violate [section 1983] is a question of fact for the jury.’”

A reasonable juror could find that the defendants knew about the harassment but consistently failed to intervene, satisfying the imputation requirement for her hostile work environment claim, the court added.

The court was careful to note that it “do[es] not suggest that the conduct of implicit bias trainings is per se racist. What matters here is the way the trainings were conducted. When employment trainings discuss any race ‘with a constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language [about a particular race], they risk liability under federal law.’ And when a municipal agency consistently ignores the racial harassment of employees in both trainings and workplace interactions, it can be held liable.”

To read the opinion in Chislett v. New York City Department of Education, click .

Why it matters: The Second Circuit decision makes clear that depending on its content, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) trainings and initiatives can form the basis of a hostile-work-environment claim. This comes on the heels of several anti-DEI initiatives under President Trump. The President has issued several executive orders on the topic, including “,” which declared a new federal policy that “eliminated the use of affirmative action in government contracts and urged private employers to end ‘illegal DEI’ discrimination and preferences.” Federal agencies have followed suit; for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Department of Justice (DOJ) released a technical assistance document earlier this year, “” and the DOJ followed up with a clarifying what constitutes illegal DEI.