In White v. Roosevelt Union Free School District Board of Education, 15-CV-1035(JS)(JMW), 2025 WL 552744 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 19, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the (Caucasian) plaintiff’s claim of race-based hostile work environment asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
After summarizing the black-letter law, the court applied it to the facts, as follows:
Here, Plaintiff contends he was subject to “racially hostile actions,” created and perpetuated by an “all-black administration” against white teachers, including racial taunts, name calling, multiple and alternating room assignments, being denied keys to his classroom and facilities, and a lack of student discipline. (See Pl. Opp’n. at ECF p.8.) But Plaintiff’s proffered evidence consists of the same conclusory and speculative allegations this Court found to be unactionable for purposes of his disparate treatment claim.
For example, Plaintiff, who’s surname is “White”, contends three members of the school’s security staff referred to him as “Whitey”, “my white ‘N’ word”, and “white man”, and would say “yo, N-word” when they saw him. (Def. 56.1 Stmt. ¶¶ 59, 61-62; 66-68.) As to one of the security guards, known as “Senior”, although Plaintiff saw Senior on a sporadic basis, when they encountered each other, Senior frequently called Plaintiff “Whitey”. (Pl. 56.1 Counter-Stmt. ¶ 59; see also Pl. Opp’n. at ECF p.14.) Regardless, Plaintiff never told any of the security guards that he found their comments offensive. (Def. 56.1 Stmt. ¶¶ 69-70; Pl. 56.1 Response ¶¶ 64, 69.) Moreover, Plaintiff testified he did not believe the security guards were making the comments to be derogatory towards him, but that they liked him. (Def. 56.1 Stmt. ¶¶ 65, 71.) One security guard even spoke highly of Plaintiff to Strachan asserting Plaintiff was the best teacher in the school. (Pl. 56.1 Response ¶ 72.) Given Plaintiff’s surname is “White”, without more, the Court is hard-pressed to conclude the security guards’ use of the apparent nickname “Whitey” was disparaging or based upon discriminatory animus. Yet, even when considered in conjunction with the other names the security guards used to greet Plaintiff, and even assuming, arguendo, those names were used in a discriminatory manner, such sporadic comments made by non-supervisory employees cannot be characterized as sufficiently “severe” or “pervasive” to state a hostile work environment claim. See Curcio v. Roosevelt Union Free Sch. Dist., No. 10-CV-5612, 2012 WL 3646935, at *11 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 22, 2012) (“Comments made at irregular intervals, over such a long period of time, particularly by individuals who did not exercise any direct supervisory authority over plaintiff, cannot serve as the basis of a hostile work environment claim.”); Augustin v. Yale Club of N.Y.C., No. 03-CV-1924, 2006 WL 2690289, at *22 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 15, 2006) (finding “the infrequent and sporadic nature of the remarks at issue, over the course of five years, insufficient, as a matter of law, for [p]laintiff to maintain a hostile work environment claim”), aff’d, 274 F. App’x 76 (2d Cir. 2008) (summary order); Zheng-Smith, 486 F. Supp. 3d at 624 (“[S]imple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) are generally insufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim.” (internal quotations and citation omitted)).
Similarly, Plaintiff’s reference to isolated comments made by co-workers is also insufficient to sustain his hostile work environment claim. In one instance, a fellow white teacher yelled and cursed at him after Plaintiff raised questions about who had graded a student’s test. (Def. 56.1 Stmt. ¶ 73; Pl. 56.1 Response ¶ 74.) Admittedly, this incident was not related to Plaintiff’s race. (Def. 56.1 ¶ 74.) Moreover, “where the plaintiff and the individual whose conduct is at issue are members of the same protected class, [as here], the inference that the conduct constitutes harassment or discrimination is weakened.” Waters v. Gen. Bd. of Global Ministries, 769 F. Supp. 2d 545, 554 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) (collecting cases). Similarly, the observation by a fellow white teacher, Mr. Block, i.e., to “think about it, like your name is an insult around here” (Def. 56.1 Stmt. ¶¶ 75, 76), fails to support Plaintiff’s claim of a racially hostile work environment. Nor does another employee reporting to Plaintiff that she heard Strachan and Patton refer to Plaintiff as “white man” in 2010 and again in 2013 or 2014 enough to maintain his hostile work environment claim based upon race. (Def. 56.1 Stmt. ¶ 83; Pl. 56.1 Response ¶ 84.) Rather, such a statement is hearsay, and generally, “inadmissible hearsay is … not to be considered on a motion for summary judgment.” Mosby v. William Floyd Union Free Sch. Dist., No. 04-CV-4242, 2009 WL 10701906, *4 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2009), aff’d, 363 F. App’x 788 (2d Cir. 2010). The same holds true regarding Plaintiff’s claim that Finch told him “administrators including Mr. Strachan were ‘after’ [Plaintiff]” (Pl. Opp’n. at ECF p.28); such hearsay evidence does not warrant granting Plaintiff summary judgment as a matter of law on his racially based hostile work environment claim. See, e.g., Jean-Pierre v. Citizen Watch Co. of Am., Inc., No. 18-CV-0507, 2019 WL 5887479, at *14 n.11 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 12, 2019) (noting, where plaintiff never heard defendant use the word “nigger”, plaintiff could not rely upon allegation of defendant’s use of word to assert a hostile work environment claim (citations omitted)). Nonetheless, even if the Court were to accept these statements as admissible evidence, Plaintiff still would not have established a hostile work environment. Considered in their totality, these comments are simply not severe and pervasive enough to rise to the level of an actionable hostile work environment. See, e.g., Longmire v. Wyser–Pratte, No. 05-CV-6725, 2007 WL 2584662, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 6, 2007) (sporadic alleged racist jokes and comments were not sufficient to warrant trial on plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim).
Nor is Plaintiff’s claim that Lilas, a Black fellow teacher, who called Plaintiff an “asshole” and referred to him as “white man” (Pl. 56.1 Response ¶ 87; Pl. Dep. Tr. 125:3-12), sufficient to create a genuine dispute of material fact. Plaintiff testified he did not know whether Lilas was calling him an asshole “entirely because [he’s] white” or whether “[h]e’s just calling me an asshole.” (Pl. Dep. Tr. 128:21-129:9.) “[U]sing profanity to refer to a co-worker,” while offensive, “does not rise to the level required to demonstrate a discriminatory hostile work environment.” Kodengada v. IBM, 88 F. Supp. 2d 236, 243 (S.D.N.Y. 2000); Small v. New York, No. 12-CV-1236S, 2017 WL 1176032, at *5 (W.D.N.Y. Mar. 30, 2017) (“A few isolated incidents of boorish or offensive use of language are generally insufficient to establish a hostile work environment.”) (collecting cases).11 Upon the summary judgment record presented, Plaintiff’s exchange with Lilas is best described as “a clash of personalities rather than [ ] discriminatory animus.” Kodengada, 88 F. Supp. 2d at 243.
At bottom, considering the totality of the circumstances, no reasonable juror could conclude that Defendant’s conduct created a workplace so “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that [it] [was] sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the [Plaintiff’s] employment and create an abusive working environment.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 21; see Alfano, 294 F.3d at 376, 380 (vacating award for hostile work environment, because the “humiliating” and “plainly offensive” incidents were “too few, too separate in time, and too mild … to create an abusive working environment” and because no incident was “of such severity and character as to itself subvert the plaintiff’s ability to function in the workplace”).
Furthermore, even if the conduct complained of rose to the requisite level of severity or was otherwise pervasive, Plaintiff’s claim of hostile work environment would still fail because, as discussed supra, Plaintiff fails to offer any evidence sufficient to show that the complained-of actions were taken because of Plaintiff’s race as opposed to some other non-discriminatory reason. See Alfano, 294 F.3d at 374. “The anti-discrimination laws are not ‘a general civility code,’ and they do ‘not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace,’ only that which is motivated by specified improper considerations.” Smalls, 396 F. Supp. 2d at 372 (quoting Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 80–81, (1998)). Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim is based upon the same allegations as his discrimination claim, and like that claim, Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim cannot survive summary judgment since he fails to offer any evidence demonstrating that he was “subjected to the hostility because of h[is] membership in a protected class.” Brennan v. Metro. Opera Ass’n, 192 F.3d 310, 318 (2d Cir. 1999).
Based on this, the court held that even drawing all factual inferences in favor of Plaintiff, with respect to Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim, defendant was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.