Racially Hostile Work Environment Case

The U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (”EEOC”) is a federal agency which enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, including race based discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In an EEOC Ohio Press Release, the federal agency announced that EEOC attorneys filed a racial harassment lawsuit, alleging that a landfill company subjected its African American employees to race based harassment.  See, http://www.eeoc.gov/press/9-29-09q.html .  As stated in the September 29, 2009 Press Release, EEOC attorneys charge that the landfill company subjected two workers to unlawful racial harassment and retaliation, including allegedly condoning the repeated use of racial slurs by its supervisors and the permanent display of the Confederate flag on its property.  EEOC attorneys filed the discrimination lawsuit in Ohio after first attempting to reach a voluntary out of court settlement.  An EEOC attorney with the agency’s Detriot Field Office was quoted in the Press Release as saying, in part, that “Egregious conduct in the form of racial slurs, especially when uttered by supervisors, plainly cannot be tolerated.”  Further information about the EEOC and the laws enforced by this federal agency may be found in the EEOC’s website at www.eeoc.gov .