On September 25, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a significant decision in Chislett v. New York City Department of Education et al, partially reversing summary judgment and allowing a hostile work environment claim to proceed to trial.
The court held that a White employee’s claim arising from mandatory implicit bias training could survive summary judgment where the training and subsequent conduct repeatedly characterized “white culture” as “paternalistic” “entitlement- access to everything” and “supremacist.” Although the court affirmed dismissal of demotion and constructive discharge claims, it found that “a constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language” messaging could constitute race-based harassment actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983’s Equal Protection Clause framework (applying the Title VII “severe or pervasive” standard).
This marks a notable development in the growing intersection between DEI initiatives and federal anti-discrimination law. The decision underscores that implicit bias training is lawful, but content and implementation matter, particularly when training or workplace spillover uses racially essentialist and negative descriptors, and management fails to act on complaints. Importantly, the court emphasized that it was not deeming implicit bias or DEI trainings per se unlawful; rather, liability risk arises from the way trainings are designed and conducted.
Leslie...
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