An excerpt from De Piero v. Penn. State. Univ., decided Thursday by Judge Wendy Beetlestone (E.D. Pa.) (there are also other legal theories that the court rejects, which you can see discussed in the full opinion):
{De Piero{, a white man,} [argues] that his department's discussions of "antiracism," "white supremacy," "white privilege," and other concepts relating to discussions of race on campus, all of which "repeatedly singl[ed] out and demean[ed] faculty members on the basis of race," subjected him to a hostile work environment.} De Piero … began working at Penn State Abington as a non-tenure-track Assistant Teaching Professor of English and Composition in 2018. Penn State Abington holds itself out as "the most diverse campus within" the Penn State system "and the only majority minority campus." …
Title VII (along with the PHRA and Section 1981) renders employers liable for harassment that is "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [the plaintiff's] employment and create an abusive working environment." … Whether a series of alleged incidents constitutes pervasive harassment is a circumstance-specific question: the "frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employees work performance" are all relevant to whether the discrimination the employee suffered was sufficiently "severe" or "pervasive." …
[De Piero alleges that he] was obligated to attend conferences or trainings that discussed racial issues in essentialist and deterministic terms—ascribing negative traits to white people or white teachers without exception and as flowing inevitably from their race—in June 2020, October 2020, November 2020, January 2021, and October 2021. His Amended Complaint contains at least some discussion of the content of each such meeting [bullets added -EV]:
- in June 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, "Wong [Assistant Vice Provost for Educational Equity] expressed her intention to cause Penn State's white faculty to 'feel the pain' that [he] endured;"
- in a "breathing exercise," Wong told "White and non-Black people of color to hold [their breath] just a little longer—to feel the pain;" that October, Naydan, [Chair of the English Department and] De Piero's supervisor, co-led a professional development meeting on multiculturalism that included "supposed examples of 'racist' comments" where every hypothetical perpetrator was white;
- the following month included an event called "Arts and Humanities as Activism," where De Piero alleges the facilitator "condemn[ed] white people for no other reason than they spoke or were simply present while being 'white,'" including by "condemn[ing] … 'white elites' and 'white self-interest;'"
- Naydan endorsed that training's message repeatedly;
- in January 2021, at an "antiracism pedagogy" meeting, Naydan spoke of race conscious grading;
- and, finally, in October of that year, Naydan and her co-facilitator led another training, which included an excerpt that "accused white faculty" of 'unwittingly reproduc[ing] racist discourses and practices in our classroom." It was, according to Naydan's co-facilitator, "about a group."
