The U.S. Supreme Court could weigh in on whether racial slurs create a hostile work environment. Robert Collier, a former aide at Parkland Memorial Hospital, in Dallas, Texas, filed a discrimination lawsuit after the n-word was scratched into an elevator that he and other employees used.
The hospital management took no action after Collier's complaints, the Rev. Irene Monroe and the Rev. Emmett G. Price III told Boston Public Radio on Monday. The plaintiffs are appealing a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the hospital's conduct wasn't "sufficiently hostile" because the slur wasn't directed at Collier.
"If people say that this is hurtful, harmful, traumatic, that it makes for an inhospitable or dissatisfactory work environment, that should be delt with," Price said. "When these things happen on college campuses, everyone pulls the alarm, because we understand that this is a challenging situation for the dehumanization for people."
The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to hear the case, but the NAACP is urging the justices to take it on.
"I get really annoyed about the n-word in so many ways, because we have a double standard on who can or can't use it," Monroe said. "We're really conflicted as a people about the use of the word, and I think it continues to hurt people."
Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Price is professor of worship, church and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he directs the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience. Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by GBH.
