Justin J. White v. Vance County Sheriff, et al.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e2 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. This Court holds that these rights apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation, as well as race. Additionally, 42 U.S.C. § 1981 precludes discrimination based on race. In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Court held that the use of the word “nigger”, calling a man “boy”, “bitch”, “gay”, and saying a man “sucked dick” and got “fucked in the ass” in the workplace is appropriately used in the workplace and is not pervasive enough to alter the work environment or work conditions, among other insults. There are Circuits that would also agree with this ruling and then there are those Circuits that would flatly disagree. The question presented is: Whether the use of the word “nigger and/or nigga”, calling a man “boy”, “bitch”, “gay”, and saying a man “sucks dick” and got “fucked in the ass” can be considered “colloquial” or “teasing” in the employment context (by a superior) or whether those words are inherently offensive to rise to a presumption of hostility, even if said by a person of the same or different minority and/or affinity group, with the racial comments standing alone under Section 1981 or combined under Title VII?