Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—E.D. Pa.: Verizon won’t face trial on race-based claims of Black employee fired for using ‘n-word’, (Oct 10, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“Much as Plaintiff wishes it were true, it is not for the Court to referee who can say what and when.”

A Black Verizon Wireless employee who was fired after using the “n-word” twice under his breath while walking away from a conversation with a white coworker cannot advance to trial on his claim he was terminated as a result of his race, ethnicity, and cultural folkways and/or mores, a federal district court in Pennsylvania held, granting summary judgment against his Title VII and state-law claims. His disparate treatment claim failed for lack of any appropriate comparators—he pointed to three Black employees who were not fired after using the same racial slur—and his disparate impact claim failed as there was no mention of any policy that was followed, among other reasons (Murray v. Verizon Wireless, LLC, No. 24-273 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 8, 2025)).

The employee, who had worked for Verizon since 2017, and at the store from which he was terminated since 2021, was involved in a seemingly innocuous conversation with a white coworker in June 2023. As the conversation ended, he walked toward the front of the store while twice uttering the “n-word” under his breath. Although his coworker did not hear him, another Black employee reported his use of the racial slur to HR.

Termination. The company investigated, interviewing several individuals including the employee who admitted to using the “n-word.” He was subsequently fired for his use of that word at work.

Disparate treatment. Suing for disparate treatment in violation of Title VII and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, the employee argued that the term “racial slur” as referenced in the company’s handbook was ambiguous. Even if that were true, said the court, the handbook also contains a provision stating that employment with Verizon is at-will, which meant he had to do more than “merely create a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether Defendant violated its own handbook when it fired him for using the ‘n-word.’” He had to show the violation was based on racial or ethnic animus for Black employees.

Comparators. In an attempt to support his claim, the employee pointed to potential comparators—three African-American employees who had also used the “n-word” during the same time period but received final written warnings rather than termination. But because they were all in his protected class, they were not appropriate comparators, observed the court. As to the employee’s contention that this showed the company did not treat all employees the same, the court explained that while that might be true, “Title VII does not require an employer to treat all its employees the exact same way,” only that any difference in treatment not be based on a protected attribute.

EEOC guidance. Addressing next the employee’s citation to EEOC guidance on hostile work environment claims in an attempt to establish his entitlement to say the “n-word” at work without consequences, the court, though somewhat bewildered, explained that the fact his actions may or may not have themselves created a hostile work environment for others did not mean Verizon was not entitled to hold him to a higher standard, as long as that standard was not, itself, discriminatory.

Disparate impact. Turning to the employee’s disparate impact claim, the court pointed out that not only was there no mention in the complaint about any policy that was followed, the employee expressly asserted that “there is no prohibition from using the ‘n’ word in the Defendant’s employee handbook/manual” and that he was “unaware of any other company policy that prohibits an employee from using the ‘n’ word.” His complaint, said the court, not only fails to plead a cause of action for disparate impact, “it goes out of its way to exclude such a theory.”

But even if it were to consider the merits of a disparate impact claim, the court noted that statistical disparities “alone can raise an inference of causation, but only when those disparities are substantial and the statistical evidence is reliable.” And here, the court observed, the employee had only the demographics of 18 individual Verizon employees and nothing regarding the demographics of the qualified population in the relevant labor market or even the racial demographics of Verizon’s entire workforce and his meager statistics did not suggest a bias against African-American employees.

Retaliation. Regarding the employee’s retaliation claim, the court, agreeing with Verizon, found no evidence of a protected activity. The employee pointed to a meeting he had with the district manager but the notes from that meeting showed only that he complained only about an unfair environment and expressed his view that a white coworker should not be offended by his use of the “n-word.” There was simply nothing in the notes, said the court, to suggest he was complaining about race discrimination.

Legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. Further, said the court, even if the employee were able to establish a prima facie case under Title VII and the PHRA, violation of a neutrally applicable policy prohibiting the use of certain language deemed inappropriate in the workplace is a legitimate reason to fire an employee and there was no evidence of pretext. “The uncontroverted evidence, to the contrary, suggests that the vast majority of people who do exactly what Plaintiff did are punished the exact same way he was, and that the only exceptions to that general trend are in the same protected class he is.”

Finally, while the court was sympathetic with the employee’s frustration over his termination—" he allowed himself to become irritated by an innocuous conversation with a co-worker with whom he was friendly, and used a word that, for him, may well be entirely in-bounds in many other social circumstances”—it stressed that it was “an absurdity to claim, as Plaintiff implicitly does, that Title VII and the PHRA effectively enshrine a right for any person to use any slur which applies to their own protected characteristic in the workplace.” Employers, said the court, “must be free to establish either formal or informal norms of acceptable workplace behavior which are enforceable uniformly and consistent with Title VII and the PHRA. That is what happened here.”

The case is No. 24-273.

Judge: Weilheimer, G.

Attorneys: Neil M. Hilkert (PAX Legal Inc.) for Devon Murray. Zachary Halpern (Jackson Lewis) for Verizon Wireless, LLC.

Companies: Verizon Wireless, LLC

Cases: RaceDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation Discharge PennsylvaniaNews GCNNews