From In the Matter of Ruggiero, decided last month by the N.J. intermediate appellate court:
Ruggiero was accused of workplace misconduct and the County sought to terminate her. That sanction was first rejected by a hearing officer and then an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). The ALJ found a six-month suspension, as had been recommended by the hearing officer, to be a more appropriate penalty. Both parties filed exceptions to the ALJ's findings leading to the decisions by the CSC{, which reduced [the] disciplinary sanction … to thirty working-days, ordered [Ruggiero's] reinstatement, and awarded her back pay}….
The following facts are derived from the record. In October 2018, on a date that no one can recall, Ruggiero, a self-identified woman of color and a fifteen-year employee of the Camden County Purchasing Department, was overheard by … two white colleagues, to have said the word "nigga." {The inclusion of this word, repeatedly, in this opinion while understandably jarring to read, is necessary to provide context for the reader and an accurate recitation of the record. The question of how legal discussions should deal with fact patterns that include epithets is a topical one. Randall L. Kennedy & Eugene Volokh, The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond, 49 Cap. L. Rev. 1, 12 (2021) (How do lawyers and judges deal with this issue? The answer, it turns out, is that they routinely quote the epithets literally and precisely, without euphemisms or expurgation. A Westlaw query for "nigger & date (aft 1/1/2000)" finds over 9,500 Westlaw-accessible opinions (including cases, trial court orders, and administrative decisions). And that does not include the nearly 5,000 such opinions from before the year 2000, plus whatever is present in the vast set of trial court orders that do not appear on Westlaw. A search for "nigga niggaz & date (aft 1/1/2000)" finds over 2,300 opinions. A similar search for "fag" yields over 3,000 references, though a few of those are false positives).} The precise circumstances of the utterance could not be recalled by the witnesses, but they were clear that Ruggiero's use of the word was not directed at either of them or, in fact, to any person.
Immediately after hearing Ruggiero use the word, Jeanette [one of the colleagues] told her that she would appreciate it if Ruggiero would not use that word in her presence. Ruggiero does not dispute that this happened. Whether or not Ruggiero was defiant in response or more muted is disputed, but her defiance, if any, was apparently limited to saying something along the lines of "this is how I talk." This otherwise unmemorable interaction between the three co-workers ended shortly after it had begun.
