Hostile Work Environment Dismissal Affirmed; Alleged Racist Etchings Insufficient

In Williams v. County of Nassau, 2020 WL 2703675 (2d Cir. May 26, 2020)) (Summary Order), the Second Circuit, inter alia, affirmed the lower court ‘s summary judgment dismissal of plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim.

From the decision:

[T]he existence of the carvings at issue, though highly offensive, were not under the specific circumstances here “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [Williams’s] employment and create an abusive working environment.” Feingold v. New York, 366 F.3d 138, 149 (2d Cir. 2004) (quotation marks omitted). There is no record evidence that any employees of Nassau County were responsible for the carvings that Williams claims created the hostile work environment, see id. at 150, and Williams concedes that non-County employees and inmates had access to the medical unit where the carvings were located. Williams argues that the District Court failed to consider, as part of the totality of the circumstances surrounding the offensive carvings, the way she was treated by two coworkers, but there is no basis in the record for inferring that these race-neutral incidents were motivated by Williams’s race.

While this Order does not elaborate on what it refers to as “carvings”, the lower court’s decision (see Williams v. County of Nassau, 15-CV-7098, 2019 WL 2270518 (E.D.N.Y. May 28, 2019)) refers to them as “etchings” of the letters “KKK” and a half-finished swastika.

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