From Yelling v. St. Vincent's Health System, decided Thursday by the Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion by Judges Elizabeth Branch and Andrew Brasher and District Judge Allen Winsor (N.D. Fla.):
In March of [2015], President Obama visited Lawson State Community College—a predominantly black school Yelling [a nurse at St. Vincent's] had attended. While nurses were chatting one day at the nurse station, charge nurse Jimmy Wilhite remarked, "What is he doing coming here? Is he handing out food stamps?"
After that, as Yelling explains, the CDU "got really kind of heated with … racially disparaging comments." Yelling overheard white pool nurse Sandy Sheffield say, "Michelle Obama looks like a monkey" and that the "President is a piece of shit." White staffer Tiffany Hardy made similar remarks. So too did white weekday nurse Linda Powell, who said President Obama was "stupid," was the "worst president ever," and "needs to go back to Africa."
Yelling also heard these three coworkers refer to black patients as "boy" or "girl," "crack heads," "welfare queens," or "ghetto fabulous." And three other white coworkers … talked at the nurse station about their "redneck status," owning guns, and being "confederate flag flyers."
Yelling does not remember having any racial insult or slur directed at her personally. Still, Yelling reported the comments as offensive to the house supervisor on June 14, 2015. She also complained that Dubose maintained a "quota" of only staffing one black nurse per shift. St. Vincent's did not investigate Yelling's complaints or discipline any CDU staff for racist comments or staffing practices.
Yelling was later suspended and eventually fired, based on other allegations; she sued alleging retaliation and discrimination (read the opinion for more on that) and racial harassment:
