Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—E.D. Pa.: White Penn State professor, subjected to anti-racist rhetoric, cannot advance claims, (Mar 10, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

He contended that job-related trainings and discussions surrounding white privilege and racism created a hostile work environment.

Granting summary judgment against the Title VII and PHRA hostile work environment claims asserted by a former writing professor at Penn State, a federal district court in Pennsylvania found that the complained-of harassment was neither severe nor pervasive enough to support his allegations. Further, the incidents in question could not have been said to have unreasonably interfered with the professor’s work performance. Indeed, his contract was renewed and he received a pay raise, despite clashing with his colleagues (De Piero v. Pennsylvania State University, No. 23-2281 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 6, 2025)).

The plaintiff in this case, a white man, worked as an assistant teaching professor of English composition at Penn State Abington from August 2018 to August 2022. He premised his hostile work environment claims on 12 incidents that had occurred over the course of approximately three-and-a-half years.

Email thread. According to the professor, the first incident occurred at the end of March 2019 during an email thread wherein the parties discussed scholarship regarding antiracist writing. Although the professor had adopted a conciliatory tone in his email exchanges with the coordinator of the writing program, he asserted that the coordinator had “expressed [a] corrosive race-based ideology.”

Campus conversation. Another incident cited by the professor was a campus conversation about racial injustice that was held over Zoom on June 5, 2020. A presenter had revealed “her own anti-White bias,” said the professor, particularly with regard to her comments about breathing and looting.

Additional emails. Several other incidents concerning email communications were also cited by the professor in support of his hostile work environment claims, including a June 19, 2020, email commemorating Juneteenth, August 2020 emails regarding the university’s hiring of a white police officer, emails that same month regarding the academic focus of the coming year’s professional development meetings, and October 2020 emails promoting an event on campus concerning “rhetoric and writing of critical race theory.”

November writing program meeting. A writing program professional development meeting held on November 2, 2020, was another incident referred to the by the professor. There, the group had discussed racism in writing assessments.

Bias reports. In March 2021, the writing program’s coordinator submitted an internal bias report with Penn State’s Affirmative Action Office (AAO) accusing an unnamed faculty member of harassment on the basis of gender identity. The coordinator later confirmed that the report was about the professor.

On September 13, 2021, the professor filed his own bias report with the AAO complaining of discrimination and harassment on the basis of race and color. During a discussion with the AAO officer assigned to investigate the complaint, the professor complained that he felt awful every single day. “I wake up and think to myself, I’m a white teacher, I’m a problem,” said the professor. The AAO officer responded that the issue was not about the professor as an individual but rather involved a historical problem. Ultimately, the AAO did not find sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations.

October meeting. At an October 18, 2021, writing program meeting, the group discussed antiracist approaches to teaching and learning. The coordinator opened the meeting by stating that, “anybody who doesn’t feel comfortable talking about any of this does not have to be here by any means.” Nonetheless, the professor opted to stay and ended up getting in a contentious discussion with the coordinator and another colleague.

Bias report part 2. Following this meeting, the coordinator filed a bias report against the professor accusing him of harassment on the basis of sex and “political ideas.” The AAO concluded that although the professor’s conduct was unprofessional and contrary to the university’s values, his conduct did not rise to the definition of unlawful harassment and did not violate university policy.

Performance evaluation. When it came time for the professor’s performance review, he was downgraded to “Fair to Good” in the “Service and the Scholarship of Service to the University, Society and the Profession” category, with the evaluation specifically mentioning the professor’s conduct during the October 18 meeting.

At this point, the professor had applied for and accepted a position at another college. He resigned from his position at Penn State and subsequently filed this lawsuit.

Severity. First, the court looked to the severity of the alleged harassment to determine whether this could support the professor’s hostile work environment claims. Here, the court found that while the events experienced by the professor may have been unpleasant for him, they did not rise to the level of extremely serious misconduct.

“No rational trier of fact could view occurrences such as receiving campus-wide e-mails about the murder of George Floyd, Juneteenth, and the hiring of police officers; being invited to review scholarly materials and engage in conversations about antiracist approaches to teaching and learning; and, discussing allegations of harassment levied by and against him as sufficiently “extreme” to sustain his charge of “severe” harassment,” said the court.

Pervasiveness. Turning to the issue of pervasiveness, the court observed that the professor had not experienced continuous harassment on a daily or even weekly basis during the time period at issue. Instead, the incidents were more sporadic in nature, often separated in time by months. Further, of the 12 incidents cited by the professor to support his claim, only a few involved actions that were personally directed at the professor by name.

As to whether the conduct was physically threatening or humiliating, or merely an offensive utterance, the court noted the professor’s complaints that he felt awful and that he believed he was the problem based solely on the fact that he was a white teacher. Penn State contended that context was important in this regard, asserting that “most of these messages and meetings occurred in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder during a time when, contextually, these discussions were happening all across the country.” In addition, the professor opted-in to the discussions of race, which were not mandatory.

Although the complained-of conduct undoubtedly engendered offensive feelings in the professor, no rational trier of fact could determine that he was subjected to a steady stream of offensive racial comments that would sustain a pervasive harassment claim, said the court.

Work performance. Finally, the court considered whether the complained-of conduct unreasonably interfered with the professor’s work performance. Here, the record revealed that several of the complained-of meetings or events that were optional, suggesting that the professor took it upon himself to engage with the antiracist materials.

Disputing this characterization, the professor asserted that failure to attend such meetings or events would likely lead to an unfavorable teaching evaluation. However, despite being downgraded on one category of his performance evaluation, the professor was not fired from his position, did not experience a change in job responsibilities, and, in fact, received a contract renewal and a pay raise.

Considering these circumstances, no rational trier of fact could determine that the conduct at issue here unreasonably interfered with the professor’s work performance, said the court. Accordingly, summary judgment was granted in favor of Penn State.

The case is No. 23-2281.

Judge: Beetlestone, W.

Attorneys: Michael Thad Allen (Allen Harris) for Zack K. De Piero. Amy L. Piccola (Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr) for Pennsylvania State University.

Companies: Pennsylvania State University

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