EXCLUSIVE: Montana AG Asks Supreme Court to Revive Case Against DEI Training That Allegedly Declared ‘All Caucasians’ Racist

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is leading 20 states in urging the Supreme Court to take up the case of Joshua Young, a former Colorado prison guard who sued the Department of Corrections over a diversity, equity, and inclusion training.

“DEI training actively undermines workplace harmony, and it causes hostility, distrust, and division,” the amicus brief, exclusively obtained by the Daily Signal, states.

Young’s “complaint identifies myriad examples of how the [Department of Corrections’] training program endorsed treating and viewing Caucasians worse than other races,” the amicus brief notes.

According to Young’s lawsuit, “the training insisted, among other things, that all Caucasians are racist, that they perpetuate white supremacy, that the very notion of race was invented by white people to justify the oppression of people of color, that white supremacy is an ever-present feature of daily life in the United States, and that Caucasians who deny their own racism are merely ‘fragile’ racists who cannot accept their own prejudice.”

However, Young claimed the training’s effects reverberated afterward, shaping how the prison operated and leading him to conclude that he could not advance in the department.

Young’s supervisors told him they would evaluate whether he incorporated its principles into his work. According to his filings, the training increased distrust within the prison, discouraged him from seeking a promotion, and caused him to second-guess otherwise justified use-of-force decisions due to potential race-based implications.

“Given CDOC’s instruction that employees analyze workplace decisions through a racial-equity framework, Young understood that his superiors would be more likely to credit accusations of racism against him—making his assigned job significantly harder,” the filing states.

Lower courts rejected Young’s lawsuit, ruling that his allegations did not establish a sufficiently severe or pervasive hostile work environment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit found the training “troubling on many levels” and said its race-based rhetoric was “well on the way to arriving at objectively and subjectively harassing messaging,” but concluded that Young fell short of proving a violation, because the training happened only once and was not followed by additional harassment.

Young’s petition argues that the 10th Circuit’s approach conflicts with rulings from other federal appeals courts that have recognized a single sufficiently severe incident may create a hostile work environment. Title VII forbids employers from fostering a hostile work environment through “severe or pervasive” workplace harassment.

Knudsen’s brief accuses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit of only evaluating the case “under a pervasiveness standard” in noting that the training occurred only once.

“This sort of top-down discrimination is worlds away from most hostile work environment claims, which usually involve employees harassing other employees,” Knudsen’s brief argues. “A training program that instructs employees to treat others differently based solely on race creates a work environment ‘permeated with abuse.'”

“The answer to racism is not more racism,” Knudsen declares.

Young filed an internal discrimination complaint with the Colorado department, but the inspector general declined to investigate because it found insufficient cause. Colorado has argued that the department did not require employees to change their personal beliefs.

Knudsen’s brief asks the Supreme Court to grant Young’s petition, reverse the dismissal of his case, and allow his hostile-work-environment claim to proceed. The justices would not be deciding whether Young ultimately proved discrimination.

The brief goes further than simply urging Supreme Court review. It condemns this form of DEI training in general, suggesting that employers may engage in discrimination by requiring it.

“Employer training sets the tone for the entire workplace,” Knudsen warns. “When an employer officially sanctions racial scapegoating and treating individuals differently depending on their race in the workplace, that employer per se creates a hostile work environment. Even infrequent training can create a pervasive race-based hostility for the races singled out for negativity.”

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