Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—SEX—D. Kan.: Sales director, called ‘slut’ by supervisor, advances bias, retaliation claims, (Nov 12, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

Although the employer insisted the employee was fired after team member complaints and turnover, her supervisor was the conduit for those complaints, none of which were reviewed by higher-ups or HR.

Denying summary judgment against an employee’s claims for sex discrimination and retaliation, a federal district court in Kansas found the employer’s asserted reasons for terminating the employee to be pretextual, noting that a reasonable jury could find that her supervisor called her a derogatory name because he is biased against women and his bias infected every aspect of her claims. However, the court did grant the employer’s motion for summary judgment against the employee’s claim for a hostile work environment, finding four incidents over the employee’s five-years of employment to be insufficiently pervasive, and the single derogatory comment, through “reprehensible,” did not qualify as extremely serious conduct to support this claim (Long v. Alpha Media, LLC, No. 24-2400-DDC (D. Kan. Nov. 6, 2025)).

In January 2018, the employee began working as a sales manager for the employer. Her supervisor worked as her boss for the entirety of her employment. In April 2018, the employee was promoted to sales director based on her supervisor’s recommendation, a role in which she supervised a team of sales associates.

Complaints. Beginning in August 2018, the supervisor claimed to notice the employee had a negative attitude. He documented those concerns but never shared them with the employee. In July 2019, another employee came to the supervisor alleging that five employees had complained to her about the sales director’s behavior. The supervisor met with the five employees.

Warning notice. After meeting with the five employees in question, the supervisor met with the sales director and told her that others had issues with her behavior. He issued her an “employee warning notice,” which included a plan for improvement that, among other things, called for the supervisor to move his office next to the employee’s.

Upon receiving the notice, the employee notified a company executive, expressing her shock at having received such a notice. The executive cautioned the employee about getting the executive involved, explaining that such a warning was meant to serve as an informal “wake-up call” that no one else needed to know about. Indeed, the warning was never added to the employee’s personnel file.

Additional complaints. According to the supervisor, in October 2019 he received complaints about the sales director from three other employees. He claimed to have met with the employee to discuss these complaints, but the employee asserted that she never learned about them.

Resignations. All remained quiet until 2023 when the employee and her supervisor had an argument in front of the sales team that February. That March, one of the employee’s team members resigned, followed by another employee in April. In their resignation letters, neither mentioned the employee as the reason for their departure.

Family hires. After the first resignation, the supervisor hired his daughter to fill the vacant position, with his daughter serving as his direct report. To replace the position left vacant by the second resignation, the supervisor hired his spouse, who purportedly reported to the employee, but only on paper.

Derogatory comment. In May 2023, the employee joined a conversation with her supervisor and three male employees. The first word the supervisor said to the group was inaudible, but was followed by “is a dumb slut.” Upset by the comment, the employee reported the incident to the supervisor’s boss. The supervisor’s boss demanded that the two meet and the supervisor apologize. The supervisor purportedly said he was sorry, a claim that the employee disputes.

More resignations. The following month, another of the employee’s direct reports resigned. According to the supervisor, she told him that she was resigning because she could not work with the employee any longer. These concerns were not mentioned in her resignation letter.

Another direct report allegedly told the supervisor that he was going to quit if the employee did not change her leadership style. He asserted that a coworker who had resigned in January did so because he could no longer work with the employee, although the coworker’s resignation letter never cast blame on the employee, instead referring to her as “amazing” and “absolutely wonderful.”

Also, in late June 2023, another direct report resigned. Again, the supervisor claimed that he resigned because he could no longer work with the employee and, again, his resignation letter failed to mention any such issues.

Termination. Based on these resignations and discussions with two other employees, the supervisor took his concerns to his boss and the director of HR. The supervisor’s boss did not review any documents or investigate the concerns on her own, and the supervisor did not share any notes or documents with HR, and no one from HR investigated the supervisor’s concerns.

After consulting with HR, the supervisor and his boss jointly decided to terminate the employee due to the significant turnover in her department and the complaints about her conduct. Subsequently, the employee filed this lawsuit, asserting claims for sex discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment. The court addressed each in turn.

Pretext. Having satisfied her prima face case for sex discrimination and the employer having asserted a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its termination decision, the court addressed the issue of pretext. To show pretext, the employee pointed to her supervisor’s “dumb slut” comment—which came just one-and-a-half months before her termination—and the supervisor’s purported refusal to apologize for the comment.

Here, the court noted that the most important aspect was the fact that the supervisor made the comment about the employee to the employee. Thus, the burden on the employee was to simply show a nexus between the discriminatory statement and the employer’s decision, a burden the employee ably satisfied.

A reasonable jury could find that the supervisor specifically directed the derogatory comment about the employee to the employee—the only woman in the conversation—and that he was her supervisor, observed the court. Further, six weeks later he made the decision to terminate her employment. Thus, a jury could infer from the supervisor’s remarks that unlawful gender bias motivated his decision.

Joint decision? In response, the employer pointed out the supervisor’s boss—a woman—participated in the decision to terminate the employee, thus dispelling any notion of pretext because the supervisor’s boss belongs to the same protected class as the employee. The court was not persuaded.

Although it was true that the termination decision was made jointly, the supervisor’s boss participated minimally in the decision, explained the court, noting that the supervisor “served as the main conduit for complaints about plaintiff and as the driver behind the decision to fire her.”

Further, the supervisor’s boss never reviewed any of the documents the supervisor sent her, never demanded any proof, and did not call anyone to verify what the supervisor had said. Accordingly, not only was the supervisor a decisionmaker, a reasonable jury could determine he was the decisionmaker, said the court.

Biased? In a final effort to get around pretext, the employer emphasized that the supervisor was involved in hiring the employee and had recommended that she receive a promotion. The court noted that a reasonable jury could take this evidence to show that the supervisor did not harbor unlawful biases. However, it could also reach the opposite conclusion based on his derogatory comment and find that he called the employee a derogatory name because he is biased against women, and this bias infected every part of the case. Accordingly, the court denied the employer’s motion for summary judgment against this claim.

Retaliation. For similar reasons, the court denied the motion for summary judgment against the employee’s retaliation claim. The employee asserted two protected activities: (1) reporting the supervisor’s fair warning notice to an executive; and (2) her reporting of the derogatory comment. The employer did not challenge her prima facie case and reasserted its legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its termination decision, a decision that the employee successfully challenged as being pretextual.

Hostile work environment. Finally, the court addressed the employee’s claim for a hostile work environment. To support this claim, the employee pointed to the supervisor’s derogatory comment, his yelling at her, his hiring of family members, and moving his office next to the employee’s.

Pervasiveness. First considering pervasiveness, the court noted the multi-year gap between incidents. The supervisor moved his office in 2019, after issuing the employee warning notice. She also asserted that the supervisor had yelled at her around this time. A three-and-a-half-year lull followed these incidents. The hiring of the family members and the derogatory comment did not occur until 2023. In total, this was four incidents occurring over a five-year period of employment, which no reasonable factfinder could find pervasive, said the court.

Severity. As to severity, the employee pointed to two incidents that changed the terms and conditions of her employment: (1) the supervisor undermining her authority by hiring his family members; and (2) terminating the employee after she complained of the derogatory comment. Neither were sufficient to state a claim for a hostile work environment, explained the court.

No reasonable factfinder could find the hiring issue to be extreme, observed the court, noting the arrangement did not last long, with the supervisor’s daughter working at the company for two months and his wife a mere 10 days.

With regard to the derogatory comment, the court found that although the comment was “reprehensible,” this single comment did not qualify as extremely serious conduct sufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim under Tenth Circuit precedent. As such, the employer was entitled to summary judgment against this claim.

The case is No. 24-2400-DDC.

Judge: Crabtree, D.

Attorneys: Stephen Douglas Lanterman (Sloan Eisenbarth Glassman McEntire & Jarboe) for Francisca M. Long. Lauren Hope Beck (Jackson Lewis) for Alpha Media, LLC.

Companies: Alpha Media, LLC

Cases: Discrimination SexDiscrimination Discharge Retaliation KansasNews