Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—N.D.N.Y.: Logistics company must face Black employee's discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment claims, (Jul 22, 2026)

By Mandavi Singh, LL.M.

He alleged that he was told he had been hired because the company needed to "check a box" by employing a Black worker to demonstrate workforce diversity.

A transportation and logistics company was not entitled to summary judgment on a Black business development manager's claims of race discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and the New York State Human Rights Law, a federal district court in New York has found. Finding substantial factual disputes regarding the circumstances surrounding the employee's discharge, the court held that a jury could conclude he was terminated immediately after complaining of race discrimination and that the employer's shifting explanations for the decision were pretextual (Young v. The Shaker Group, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-01174 (N.D.N.Y. July 21, 2026)).

Seen as “token hires.” The employee joined the company in June 2021 as a senior business development manager responsible for generating new business. He alleged that shortly after he was hired, the company's people and staffing manager told him he had been hired because the company needed to "check a box" by employing a Black worker to demonstrate workforce diversity. Another former employee similarly testified that the employee and an Indian coworker were viewed as "token hires." The employee further claimed that management asked him to falsely represent the company's diversity and equal-employment practices while completing onboarding materials for a new customer that required responses concerning equal treatment of employees and anti-discrimination policies.

Slurs. According to the employee, racial incidents continued throughout his employment. He alleged that a coworker repeatedly used egregious racial slurs, including the "N-word," to refer to other employees, while the company's chief operating officer reenacted scenes from the movie Friday using what the employee described as an offensive imitation of a Black character's voice. He also claimed another coworker used the full racial epithet while discussing comments made by podcast host Joe Rogan. The employee testified that he complained about some of these incidents but received little or no meaningful response. He further alleged that, unlike white employees, he was excluded from management meetings, customer meetings, bonuses, commissions, training opportunities, and other workplace benefits. Ultimately, he was fired.

Discriminatory termination. The court concluded that the employee had presented sufficient evidence for a jury to infer race discrimination. Applying the McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), burden-shifting framework, the court rejected the employer's contention that the circumstances surrounding the discharge did not support an inference of discrimination. It pointed not only to the alleged "check the box" hiring comment and evidence concerning the company's diversity practices, but also to testimony regarding racially offensive remarks by senior management and coworkers during the employee's tenure. Citing Banks v. General Motors, LLC, 81 F.4th 242 (2d Cir. 2023), and Lenzi v. Systemax, Inc., 944 F.3d 97 (2d Cir. 2019), the court held that remarks by a decisionmaker could not be dismissed as "stray remarks" where other evidence of discrimination existed, and the speaker participated in the challenged employment decision.

No discussion of termination before meeting. The court also found the employer had not adequately established a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the termination. Although the company characterized the decision as performance-based or attributable to the employee's conduct during a March 24, 2022, meeting, the record contained little contemporaneous documentation supporting poor performance. More significantly, both sides agreed that before the meeting began, neither the chief executive officer nor the chief operating officer had discussed terminating the employee or intended to do so.

According to the employee, the meeting changed only after he responded to questions about his commitment to the company by describing numerous instances of race-based disparate treatment, including exclusion from meetings, bonuses, commission payments, leadership access, training, and performance reviews. He testified that immediately after making those complaints, the chief executive officer stated, "it's time we part ways," and terminated his employment. On that record, the court concluded that a reasonable jury could reject the employer's stated explanations as pretextual, particularly in light of the evolving reasons offered during the litigation.

Retaliation. The retaliation claims also survived summary judgment. The court held that a reasonable jury could conclude the employee engaged in protected activity when he complained during the March 2022 meeting that he was being treated differently because of his race. Construing the evidence in the employee's favor, it found that management decided to terminate him during the very meeting in which those complaints were made.

Relying on Zann Kwan v. Andalex Group LLC, 737 F.3d 834 (2d Cir. 2013), the court explained that extremely close temporal proximity, coupled with inconsistent explanations for an employee's discharge, may permit a finding that protected activity was the but-for cause of the termination. The employer's contrary arguments depended on disputed facts and credibility determinations that could not be resolved on summary judgment.

Hostile work environment. Similarly, the court found triable issues on the hostile work environment claims. Rejecting the employer's effort to analyze each alleged incident in isolation, the court emphasized that the totality of the circumstances governed the inquiry. Viewed collectively, the evidence included the alleged "check the box" hiring comment, testimony that the employee was regarded as a token hire, the alleged request to misrepresent the company's equal-employment practices to a customer, repeated racial slurs by coworkers, the chief operating officer's alleged racially offensive reenactment, the employee's complaints of exclusion from workplace opportunities, and the company's alleged failure to investigate or remedy the reported conduct.

Citing Banks, the court noted that discriminatory remarks need not be directed specifically at the plaintiff to contribute to an actionable hostile work environment. It further found that the employer had not established the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense because factual disputes remained as to whether it exercised reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct the alleged race-based harassment. A reasonable jury, the court concluded, could find that the workplace was permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult sufficient to alter the conditions of the employee's employment.

Because genuine disputes of material fact remained as to each of the employee's discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment claims, the court denied the employer's motion for summary judgment.

The case is No. 1:24-cv-01174.

Judge: Nardacci, A.

Attorneys: Marjorie Mesidor (Mesidor) for Milton Young. Howard M. Miller (Bond, Schoeneck & King) for The Shaker Group, Inc.

Companies: The Shaker Group, Inc.

Cases: RaceDiscrimination Discrimination Discharge Retaliation NewYorkNews