Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—7th Cir.: Department director’s use of N-word not enough to support probation officer’s hostile environment claim, (Jan 23, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The employee, who was terminated for performance issues and insubordination, claimed her employer created hostile conditions of employment that violated Title VII.

Although the Seventh Circuit acknowledged that a department director’s reading aloud of the N-word from a document while in a meeting with a coalition of Black probation officers was troubling, it found no other instance of hostility from him sufficient to show a Black probation officer encountered pervasive harassment based on race. Granting summary judgment to the county juvenile probation department on her hostile work environment claim, the court noted that she was not present when the director said the word, it happened nearly a year before the other alleged instances of harassment began, and those alleged instances were not sufficiently severe or pervasive so as to support her claim (Jones v. Das, No. 24-2166 (7th Cir. Jan. 22, 2026)).

Use of N-word. The employee worked for the juvenile probation department from February 2015 to March 2018. In March 2016, the Indian-American department director, while reading from a document during a meeting with Black probation officers, said the N-word aloud. The document, which had been prepared by someone else, quoted a judge who had used the word while moderating a program for juvenile probationers. The employee was not present at the meeting but heard about the incident afterward.

Series of incidents. In July 2017, she had a disagreement with the department’s police laboratory liaison over a DNA sample she had collected. In a complaint to her supervisor, the employee called the liaison unprofessional. Earlier that year, she was told by the director and deputy chief probation officer (deputy) that permitting her children to wait in her office after school was against department policy. There was, however, no evidence of a written policy. In September 2017, the deputy reminded the employee of the policy after seeing her walking with her son in the building’s lobby, which was open to the public. The employee responded that she felt targeted and planned to talk to an attorney.

In August 2017, the employee was unable to take a juvenile client to his mental health assessment due to a conflict with her schedule. The next month, she sent her supervisor a draft report for the client that included two paragraphs on how management had denied her request for an accommodation to her schedule to explain why the juvenile’s appointment had been cancelled. Although she deleted the paragraphs at her supervisor’s direction, and submitted the report to the court, she later gave the judge a separate document containing the deleted paragraphs and told him she was forced to remove them from the report.

In October 2017, she submitted to her supervisor a draft on another juvenile that included two paragraphs detailing internal discussions between her, her supervisor, and another probation officer about an assessment on the juvenile. Her supervisor again asked her to delete the paragraphs but the employee refused, claiming that would make the report inaccurate. Instead, the employee complained to the sheriff and police department.

In December, a juvenile claimed the employee told her she was not going to be released from custody because the employee’s supervisor was racist. The employee was suspended and during an investigation, the department uncovered a note the employee had entered in the juvenile’s file that included her personal grievances against the deputy; a letter she had written to a juvenile’s school in which she stated that the juvenile needed to attend a meeting with her “or risk going into custody;” and a letter she had written to a juvenile’s mother requesting that she enroll her son in a rehabilitation program and warning that “[i]f you fail to respond it would force the minor to become a ward of the Department of Child and Family Services.”

Termination and lawsuit. At the end of the investigation, the director fired the employee for insubordination and performance issues. She sued under Title VII, alleging that she faced a race-based hostile work environment. The district court granted summary judgment to the department.

Pervasive harassment. On appeal, the employee pointed to several incidents during her tenure with the department that, she claimed, showed pervasive harassment. She argued first that her supervisors harassed her when they invoked the nonexistent no-children-in-the-workplace policy against her when no other employee had faced similar discipline. But she was never punished for violating the policy, said the court, but rather only reminded about it when the deputy saw her with her son in the lobby. And while the incident was mentioned in her termination letter, it was only her reaction to the reminder—threatening legal action and refusing to discuss the matter unless the sheriff was present—that was cited as an example of insubordination.

Interactions with supervisor. The employee also argued that her supervisor acted “in an irritated and frustrated manner” toward her, did not say “excuse me” before interrupting her, and would politely answer questions from white and Hispanic employees while responding rudely to Black employees. But this rude behavior, the court explained, “reflects the sort of relatively minor slights that, if actionable, would risk turning Title VII into a general civility code.”

False accusations. Next, the employee pointed to several instances of purportedly false accusations by her supervisor, including being labeled unprofessional for calling the liaison unprofessional. But because the employee admitted to accusing the liaison of being unprofessional, she was not falsely accused, said the court. And while she might have disagreed with her supervisor’s assessment, no reasonable jury could conclude it was false, much less hostile, abusive, or harassing.

Chastised. Nor was the court persuaded by her contention the department falsely chastised her without evidence of her children being in the office. Once again, the court explained, this was not a false accusation as she admitted to having her children in the office in early 2017 and she was not disciplined for violating the policy but rather for her insubordinate response to the deputy.

Overstating authority. As to her claims the department falsely accused her of overstating her authority in her written work product, she admitted to sending the two client letters—one warning of incarceration and the other of removal of custody for not complying with her directive—which the director ultimately concluded were inappropriately coercive. Here, said the court, while reasonable jurors could disagree with the director’s assessment of the letters, no rational jury could conclude that it was hostile, abusive, or harassing for him to determine that the letters were overly coercive and thus reflected poor performance.

Misrepresentation. And while she also claimed the department falsely accused her of insubordination after she refused to misrepresent facts to the court, viewing the record as a whole, she was not being asked to misrepresent facts and she had other similar instances of insubordination where she provided the court with extraneous details after her supervisor directed her not to.

Racist supervisor. Turning to her claim the department falsely accused her of telling a juvenile her supervisor was a racist, the court pointed out that the employee submitted to the district court that her Title VII claim was not based on her termination but rather the hostile work environment she experienced during her employment. By the time, however, the deputy reported the juvenile’s accusation, the employee had already been suspended and never returned before she was terminated. Thus, no reasonable jury could have found that this episode affected the conditions of her employment.

Racial animus. Addressing finally the employee’s reliance on the deputy’s reading of the N-word to support her contention she encountered pervasive harassment based on race, the court acknowledged that this was a troubling incident it could not ignore. But he used the word while reading a quote from a document during a meeting at which the employee was not present, the incident occurred nearly a year before the other cited incidents of harassment began, and there were no other instances of hostility by him sufficient to create a material fact issue. Finding that the employee failed to show pervasive, race-based harassment, the court affirmed summary judgment against her hostile work environment claim.

The case is No. 24-2166.

Judge: Kolar, J.

Attorneys: Giel Stein (Clark Hill) for Tonnette Jones. Carson Griffis, Office of the Attorney General, for Avik Das, Eileen Kintzler, and Circuit Court of Cook County, Office of the Chief Judge.

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