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A racial discrimination case filed by the EEOC on behalf of a Black woman who was fired after complaining about racist comments allegedly made by her supervisor at a dental clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana, can proceed, a federal judge has ruled.
Destiny Johnson was working at CASSE Community Health Institute as a dental assistant in June 2020 when she heard the clinic’s director, Dr. Edward Chumley, who is white, propose to join ongoing racial justice protests in blackface and to go rioting and looting, according to her legal complaint.
Woman at front desk of dental office. (Stock/Getty)
Johnson also claimed she witnessed Chumley tell a co-worker “he was okay with her so long as she was not part of an Antifa group or Black Lives Matter,” and that Chumley “singled out Ms. Johnson — the only Black employee in a room of white employees” — and asked her whether she had attended recent racial justice protests in Shreveport.
Johnson told co-workers and another supervisor that Chumley’s comments and actions made her feel uncomfortable, a complaint that was relayed to the clinic’s CEO, Mary Elizabeth Chumley, the wife of Edward Chumley.
Within one hour of learning of Johnson’s complaints from billing manager Karen Weber, Mary Chumley placed Johnson on administrative leave.
Shortly thereafter, Johnson was fired, which she contends was based on her race and in retaliation for her complaints. The clinic hired a white dental assistant to fill her position, the complaint says.
Johnson filed a complaint in August 2020 with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), which found cause to believe that CASSE, a nonprofit which operates several health clinics in northwestern Louisiana, had engaged in federal civil rights violations.
After two months of conciliation efforts between the New Orleans field office of the EEOC and clinic management failed, the EEOC filed its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, claiming CASSE had terminated Johnson because of her race and because she complained of racial discrimination.
The lawsuit asks the court to order CASSE and its employees to cease discriminating and retaliating against its employees on the basis of race, to institute and carry out policies and practices that provide equal employment opportunities for Black applicants and employees, and to make Johnson whole by providing her with back pay, reinstatement of her job or front pay, compensation for financial losses, emotional pain and suffering, and punitive damages.
In its motion to dismiss the case filed in October 2023, CASSE argued that the EEOC had waited too long to file its lawsuit, and that the agency hadn’t sufficiently demonstrated its discrimination and retaliation claims.
“There is no evidence that the CASSE’s actions were directly or indirectly related to Ms. Johnson being African-American or that race or national origin played any role in the clinic’s decision” to fire her, the motion asserted.
The EEOC countered that its lawsuit had previously detailed that a white co-worker had informed Johnson shortly after she made her complaint to supervisors that “Dr. Chumley was racist and warned her that she should not be surprised if she got fired.”
After Johnson was put on unpaid administrative leave by Ms. Chumley, the CEO, a white dentist allegedly informed Ms. Chumley that “she had witnessed Dr. Chumley question Ms. Johnson about her participation in the racial justice protests,” and that his treatment of Johnson had also made her feel “uncomfortable “because “it seemed that Ms. Johnson had been targeted because she was Black.”
U.S. District Judge S. Maurice Hicks, Jr. ruled on Oct. 10 that the lawsuit was filed on time, and that “CASSE asserts no evidence” showing that Johnson, who had worked as a dental assistant at the clinic for about a year prior to her firing, “was not qualified for the position.” Hicks said the EEOC had “plausibly” shown that Johnson faced adverse employment action as the result of complaining about the alleged racial comments and misconduct of her supervisor, activity protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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