Reflections on Teaching Cases with “Nigger”

A thoughtful student wrote this evaluation on an employment law course I taught last semester:

I would strongly recommend avoiding cases and/or sharing stories that use the “N” word. I do not believe the instructor was attempting to be insensitive but more than one case shared involved the use of the word. Despite relevance and an attempt to enlighten, it still created a feeling of discomfort for me.

Bravo and thanks to this student. I, too, feel uncomfortable using this despicable word; and until recently, I did not teach these cases.

But my justification is captured in the cases listed below (a small sample). We read only three cases; but they are jarring, in part, because the word was also used with a pattern of harassing conduct.

My point: White people call black people at work “nigger”— with alarming regularity. Painful as this word is, I chose last semester not to whitewash what’s happening.

Consider these cases and brief excerpts: Cowher v. Carson & Roberts, (N.J. 2012) (fired employee called others “Jew Bag,” “Fuck [ ] you Hebrew,” “Jew Bastard,” “Where are [you] going, Jew,” “I have friends in high places, not in fucking temple,” “Jew Shuffle,” “If you were a German, we would burn you in the oven,” “We have Jews and Niggers that work here”); Nazir v. United Airlines, Inc., (Cal. 2009) (terminated employee of Kuwaiti and Pakistani descent may proceed to trial under state discrimination law after being called “sand nigger,” “sand flea,” “rag head,” and “camel jockey”); Ayissi–Etoh v. Fannie Mae, (D.C.Cir. 2013) (“being called the n-word by a supervisor … suffices by itself to establish a racially hostile work environment”); Rivera v. Rochester Genesee Reg’l Transp. Auth., (2d Cir. 2012) (“no single act can more quickly alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment than the use of an unambiguously racial epithet such as ‘nigger’ by a supervisor in the presence of his subordinates”); McGinest v. GTE Serv. Corp., (9th Cir. 2004) (“It is beyond question that the use of the word “nigger” is highly offensive and demeaning, evoking a history of racial violence, brutality, and subordination”); Swinton v. Potomac Corp., (9th Cir. 2001) (the word “nigger” is “perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English, ... a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry”); Spriggs v. Diamond Auto Glass, (4th Cir. 2001) (far more than a “mere offensive utterance,” the word ‘nigger’ is pure anathema to African-Americans”); Rodgers v. Western-Southern Life Ins. Co. (1993) (“Perhaps no single act can more quickly alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment than the use of an unambiguously racial epithet such as ‘nigger’ by a supervisor in the presence of his subordinates”); Daso v. The Grafton School, Inc., (D.Md. 2002) (“The word ‘nigger’ is more than [a] ‘mere offensive utterance’…. No word in the English language is as odious or loaded with as terrible a history.”); Bailey v. Binyon, (N.D.Ill. 1984) (“The use of the word ‘nigger’ automatically separates the person addressed from every non-black person; this is discrimination per se.”); and City of Minneapolis v. Richardson, 239 N.W.2d 197, 203 (1976) (“We cannot regard use of the term ‘nigger’ ... as anything but discrimination ... based on ... race.... When a racial epithet is used to refer to a [black] person ..., an adverse distinction is implied between that person and other persons not of his race. The use of the term ‘nigger’ has no place in the civil treatment of a citizen....”).