The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowed a former City of Seattle employee's hostile work environment claim to proceed, ruling that repeated anti-white statements made during the city's Race and Social Justice Initiative training and by coworkers could be legally actionable under Title VII. The decision in Diemert v. City of Seattle, written by Chief Judge Mary Murguia, reversed the lower court's dismissal of that claim, while rejecting most of the plaintiff's other claims.
The court reviewed a series of alleged incidents between 2015 and 2021, including a manager asking what a "straight white male" could offer, trainers saying "white people are cannibals" and that "racism is in white people's DNA," and a supervisor calling the employee a "colonist" and blaming him for "all injustices in the United States." The court acknowledged that any single incident might not be enough, but found the alleged conduct was "sufficiently numerous, frequent, and severe" to create a triable issue.
The court emphasized that workplace training designed to address racial barriers is not inherently discriminatory, and that Title VII does not bar discussing historical discrimination. But it also noted that Title VII's protections apply to majority-group plaintiffs as well, and that race-conscious training can violate the law when it creates a hostile environment. The case now returns to the district court for further proceedings.