Imagine you are somehow different from your co-workers. Imagine your supervisor assigns you work that is well below your skill level while other, less experienced employees receive complex and interesting tasks. Imagine someone repeatedly writes derogatory comments on a time sheet clearly directed to you. Imagine the penultimate insult occurs when your supervisor brands you with a slur and threatens to fire you in front of a crowd. Two weeks after you report the threat and degradation, the company unceremoniously fires you for “lack of work.”
This scenario may seem implausible but in a recent, high-profile case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, appellants Atron Castleberry and John Brown allege these events occurred at Chesapeake Energy Corp. after a staffing agency, STI Group, placed them there as subcontractors. Castleberry and Brown are African-American and fall within a protected class under federal and state nondiscrimination laws. The men claim they experienced a hostile work environment, received disparate treatment because of race, were subjected to policies that disparately impacted them because of race, and suffered retaliation for reporting improper conduct—all in violation of 42 U.S.C. Section 1981, see Castleberry v. STI Group, No. 16-3131, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 12611, at *3 (3d Cir. July 14).
