We can report today on the settlement of an EEOC lawsuit which we announced was filed more than a year ago. OnOctober 2, 2012, we commented that racial slurs and nooses had been the subjects of more than one of our recent blogs. (See also our post of December 3, 2012). The EEOC reported then that slurs and nooses became late-night death threats made against an employee by co-workers if he made any more racial harassment complaints against them.
The EEOC announced that it sued MMR Constructors, Inc. in Arkansas, claiming hostile work environment under Title VII because an employee was subjected to racially offensive language, graffiti and death threats by other employees. The complaint alleged that “two white co-workers came to the black employee’s home in the middle of the night and threatened to kill him if he made any more racial harassment complaints against other co-workers or with regard to the racial graffiti. The black employee reported the incident, but MMR refused to take appropriate action against the harassers because the incident occurred away from the worksite.”
An EEOC attorney made a strong statement then about racial harassment: “Racial harassment too often continues to occur in today’s workplaces while employers intentionally look the other way. A case where the victim received death threats at his home, as we found here, is especially abhorrent and unacceptable. The EEOC will continue to fight against this illegal and uncivilized misconduct.”
The EEOC has just announced that it has settled this case for $50,000 and other relief.