Bo Tefu and Antonio Ray Harvey | California Black Media
The California Supreme Court reinstated a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a Black woman in the San Francisco Attorney’s Office after a coworker used a racist slur against her.
Twanda Bailey filed the lawsuit arguing that a human resources manager mocked her stating that the worker’s compensation she claimed was not a “real issue.”
Bailey worked as an investigative assistant at the DA’s office when she sued the city in 2015. A Superior Court and appellate court ruled against her. The courts argued that the incident did not meet the legal bar for discriminatory conduct. The court says its decision was based on a single reported incident from a coworker with no direct power rather than repeated harassment or retaliation.
However, the California State Supreme Court revisited the case and overturned the appeals court ruling. The new ruling obligates the judges to reconsider the lawsuit in the context of broader office relationships rather than an isolated incident when a racial slur was used against Bailey.
Justice Kelli Evans acknowledged the historical context of the racial slur in a unanimous decision by the court judges.
“We conclude that an isolated act of harassment may be actionable if it is sufficiently severe in light of the totality of the circumstances, and that a coworker’s use of an unambiguous racial epithet, such as the N-word, may be found to suffice,” wrote Justice Evans in the court ruling.
Bailey claimed that the coworker who used the racial slur had a track record of mistreating Black women.
A week later, Bailey’s coworkers denied the claim and a supervisor failed to file a formal complaint about the incident with HR management. The HR officer, Evette Taylor-Monachino, refused to file a complaint that would escalate the issue and accused Bailey of creating a hostile work environment for the accused coworker.