Until this summer, Paula Deen, the former Food Network celebrity chef, was best known for her love of butter and deep-fried Southern cooking. Not anymore. In deposition testimony—testimony that went viral on the Internet from a racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit by a former employee—Deen admitted that years earlier, she had used the “n-word” and said she wanted to give her brother a true “southern style plantation wedding,” with Civil War-era serving by “middle-aged black men” wearing “white jackets with a black bow tie.” In the wake of this testimony, the Food Network, and sponsors such as Wal-Mart, Target, QVC and Random House, suspended or severed ties with Deen.
Although the court later dismissed the racial discrimination claims against Deen and others on standing grounds, and the matter subsequently settled privately, this highly publicized controversy highlights the impact workplace comments can have in fueling allegations of employment discrimination. Had the lawsuit continued, Deen’s comments likely would have been analyzed by the court under what has come to be known as the “stray remarks” doctrine, which reviews factors such as the extent to which the remarks at issue were made by the individuals who made the employment decision or were related to the decision-making process itself.
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