Dive Brief:
- The CEO of CASSE Community Health Institute, a nonprofit organization that operates health clinics in Louisiana, retaliated against a Black dental assistant by placing her on unpaid leave and firing her because she complained about race discrimination, a federal district court held Jan. 5 in EEOC v. Council for the Advancement of Social Services and Education.
- In June 2020, the White dental director at the clinic where the dental assistant worked asked her in front of White employees if she had attended a Black Lives Matter protest, according to court documents. The dental assistant believed the question was racially charged and complained to a co-worker. Shortly thereafter, the CEO, who is also White, texted the assistant she was being placed on unpaid administrative leave pending an assessment of the incident, court records said.
- The dental assistant was never asked to return, and the CEO told EEOC investigators she was terminated for “introduction of race” into the workplace, according to the record. The EEOC sued CASSE for alleged race discrimination, race harassment and retaliation under TItle VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Based on the CEO’s text and what she told the EEOC, the court found CASSE liable for retaliation and granted partial summary judgment to the EEOC.
Dive Insight:
The ruling represents the unusual case where a decision-maker’s statements can directly establish employer liability.
As the court explained, “Here, [the dental assistant] was placed on unpaid administrative leave, which is clearly an adverse action.” The CEO’s text and comments to the EEOC were direct evidence this happened because the dental assistant complained about the dental director’s allegedly discriminatory conduct, the court said.
The case offers another takeaway: Employers can be liable for retaliation even if the underlying conduct isn’t unlawful, so long as the employee complaining about the conduct reasonably believed it was unlawful and was treated adversely because she complained, the court pointed out.
The court noted that it was questionable whether the dental director’s conduct, standing alone, could form the basis of a discrimination claim.
However, given the context — the dental director directed his question to the only Black employee present and in front of a group of White co-workers — the dental assistant could reasonably believe he singled her out because of her race and his conduct was racially discriminatory, the court found.
From a compliance point of view, employers should never “treat complaints as the problem,” an EEOC regional attorney stated in July. In that case, a Maryland retirement community agreed to pay $85,000 to settle EEOC allegations it refused to promote a Black manager and fired her after she complained of discrimination.
