The N-Word: How Many Uses Are “Severe” Enough To Create A Hostile Work Place?
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
In answer to the title question, I would have to say “not clear” – but likely more than one. Courts, thankfully, are virtually unanimous in condemning such things. Unfortunately, they are not so unanimous in their decisions. Most courts have held that such racial slurs and tropes must occur more than once to make out a…
Read More How Many Swastikas Sprayed On The Locker Of An Auschwitz Survivor Constitutes Hostile Work Environment
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
“If you were a (rare) survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, would one swastika spray painted in your workplace be enough to create a hostile environment for you? Or one “Hitler” scrawled on your work locker? No? How about two? OK — how many, then? These may be hypotheticals, but the underlying issue is all too real for people…
Read More Another Workplace Noose And KKK Hood Case
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
After an investigation, the EEOC found that there was reasonable cause to believe that Title VII was violated by a Minnesota company. The charge? Racial harassment. The facts? The company allegedly subjected black and Hispanic employees to “severe racial harassment, [which] included a noose, a Ku Klux Klan hood and racist epithets and jokes. Despite complaints by employees…
Read More Brutal Physical Assault And Racial Slurs = $325,000 Settlement
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
Physical attack? Racial slurs such as the N-word? Another horrendous case of workplace racial harassment. Many times in the last decade I have chronicled such cases, especially where racial slurs such as the “N-word” are used, or nooses are placed in the workplace. These extreme cases seemed to have abated somewhat in the last couple…
Read More KKK Hood Used To Intimidate Black Employee
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
Besides words and phrases used to describe older workers, I also collect cases in which the N-word and/or nooses are used to create a hostile workplace to remind readers – and myself – that these cases have not ended, and that racism in the workplace has not ended. The latest is a lawsuit filed by…
Read More I Better Watch My Wallet Around You: Pay $30,000 And Do Not Pass Go
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
A settlement of a racial harassment case brought by the EEOC under Title VII provides us with the opportunity for three takeaways today. The EEOC had alleged that an Illinois bakery “fail[ed] to respond adequately” when a black employee made complaints of such harassment – that he suffered from co-workers’ “pervasive pattern of disparaging racial comments,”…
Read More One Last 2016 N-Word Lawsuit: Will It Stop In 2017?
By Richard Cohen | | Abuse in the Workplace, Discrimination in the Workplace, EEOC
More than 50 years after the Civil Rights Acts were passed, racism continues in the society at large, and in the workplace in particular. I continue to post about every workplace racial harassment case that I see where the N-word or a noose is involved, hoping to impress upon employers the seriousness of this, and…
Read More “Monkeys Don’t Wear Glasses”: Racism In NY State Prisons
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
The New York Times just published a very disturbing expose, “The Scourge of Racial Bias in New York State’s Prisons.” The racial bias and harassment is directed against correction officers as well as inmates. Meticulously researched, the article begins: “The racism can be felt from the moment black inmates enter New York’s upstate prisons. They describe being…
Read More Nooses And the N-Word: Another Outrageous Workplace Racial Harassment Suit
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
Nooses and the N-word remain front and center in workplace racial harassment suits. A shocking new racial harassment suit was just filed by the EEOC against a Minnesota construction company on behalf of two African American employees. Neither the EEOC nor juries like nooses or the N-word in the workplace, yet as I said on September…
Read More Will The N-Word And Nooses Ever Stop? Maybe When The Civil War Finally Ends
By Richard Cohen | | Uncategorized
You may have observed that when it comes to the state of race relations, the Civil War seems to have never ended, despite Grant and Lee’s friendly sit-down at Appomattox in 1865. Before we can start the necessary dialogue to finally end the 150-year old Civil War and its toxic precursors, we have to get past the coming election,…
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RICHARD COHEN
Richard Cohen has litigated and arbitrated complex corporate, commercial and employment disputes for more than 35 years, and is a trusted advisor to business owners and in-house counsel both in the United States and internationally. His clients have included Fortune 100 companies, domestic and foreign commercial and investment banks, Pacific-rim corporations and real estate development companies, as well as start-up businesses throughout the United States.
AMY EPSTEIN GLUCK
Amy Epstein Gluck has represented individuals and corporate clients in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and various federal district courts for more than twenty years. Ms. Epstein Gluck’s current practice areas include employment law—advising on and drafting employment agreements; handling employment negotiations, severance agreements, noncompete and nondisclosure agreements, “wrongful terminations” and other EEO matters; representation at the EEOC level; advising employers about discrimination laws and how to remain in compliance, and employment negotiations.
