SPEAKER_01: 0:18

Welcome back to the Deep Dive, the show where we take your complex stack of sources, the articles, the research, the legal filings, and distill the most crucial nuggets of knowledge and insight you need to be truly well informed.

SPEAKER_00: 0:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_01: 0:30

Our mission today is highly specific, highly technical, and frankly, it's just fascinating. We're looking at the legal boundaries of workplace equity policies. Right. How high is that legal bar for proving systemic discrimination against a municipality? And what specific, you know, nuanced set of facts allows one claim to survive that high bar when two others, based on the exact same events, fail completely?

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

Aaron Powell It's a huge question. We are deep in the weeds of federal civil rights law today, specifically 42 USC section 1983, and the concept of municipal liability. This whole deep dive really centers on this extremely thorny intersection of mandatory diversity and equity policies and the subsequent workplace hostility they allegedly fostered. And this is not just a New York story. Right. The outcome here has massive implications for every public sector employer, really any large organization running mandatory, institution-wide bias training nationwide. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Okay, so let's unpack this and get right into the central case. The focus of our entire analysis is the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision from September 2025 in Chislet v. New York City Department of Education, which we'll just call the DOE from here on out. Yep. So this case involves Leslie Chislett, a Caucasian former executive employee who sued the DOE and its former Chancellor, Richard Carranza, alleging race discrimination.

SPEAKER_00: 1:53

And her claim laid out this um comprehensive narrative of racial discrimination that she says resulted from the DOE's new equity agenda. She filed three distinct claims under Section 1983.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

And what were they?

SPEAKER_00: 2:04

First, she claimed disparate treatment, specifically what amounted to a demotion. Second, she claimed a hostile work environment. And third, she claimed constructive discharge, basically arguing the conditions forced her to quit.

SPEAKER_01: 2:15

Right. And the outcome, which is the main reason this case is in our stack, is what requires such deep scrutiny. The district court, the first court, originally ruled in favor of the DOE on all three counts. It granted summary judgment. But upon appeal, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals delivered this stunningly split decision.

SPEAKER_00: 2:34

Aaron Ross Powell A really surprising one. They affirmed the dismissal of the demotion and the constructive discharge claims. So those discrete adverse employment actions. Gone. But critically, they vacated the summary judgment and remanded the hostile work environment claim back to the lower court for trial.

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

Aaron Powell So what does that mean in plain English?

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

It means a rational jury could potentially find in her favor on the hostility claim, but not the others.

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

That split decision means there is a subtle but absolutely crucial legal distinction there. And understanding the why of that success and failure, that's the core of our listeners' mission today.

SPEAKER_00: 3:11

And to understand any civil rights claim against a government entity, we have to start with the legal cornerstone, Monell. Absolutely. The Monell requirement, it stems from a Supreme Court case, Monell v. Department of Social Services. It's the central legal constraint here. It's designed to shield municipalities from lawsuits based on the doctrine of respondent superior.

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

Okay, so before we get to what we can use, explain the doctrine we can't use. What's Respondent Superior?

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

That doctrine essentially means let the master answer. In typical private sector employment law, if a supervisor discriminates, the company is often automatically on the hook because the supervisor was acting within the scope of their employment. Monell explicitly says you can't do that with municipalities. You can't just sue the city of New York because one bad supervisor or one racist employee acted improperly.

SPEAKER_01: 4:02

That sounds like an impossible standard to meet. I mean, how can a plaintiff possibly prove discriminatory intent runs through the entire DNA of a huge organization like the DOE, especially without, you know, a written rule that says discriminate.

SPEAKER_00: 4:16

And that's the challenge. That's the whole ballgame. To sue the DOE, the plaintiff has to prove that the constitutional violation, in this case, racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause was caused by an official municipal policy or custom.

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

A policy or custom.

SPEAKER_00: 4:31

Right. And this policy or custom has three forms a written rule, a decision made by a final policymaker, or, and this is the most relevant one here, a pervasive and persistent pattern of behavior that policymakers tolerated or ignored.

SPEAKER_01: 4:46

So they sort of gave it the force of law by looking the other way.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

Exactly. This concept of tolerance or constructive acquiescence, that is the critical path Chislett took to keep her one claim alive.

SPEAKER_01: 4:59

So the distinction is between just random bad behavior and systemic institutionalized behavior. We need to see how she built her case to prove that the pervasive hostility was, in fact, an institutional custom that the DOE itself authorized.

SPEAKER_00: 5:12

That's it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:13

Let's jump into section one and establish the environment within the NYC DOE that serves as the backdrop to this whole conflict. Who was Leslie Chislet and, you know, how does she fit into the DOE before this new agenda was rolled out?

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

Well, Chislet was a highly qualified, long-tenured professional. She had a master's degree, had been with the DOE for over 14 years, and had a successful history, specifically turning around challenged schools.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

In 2017, she was serving as the executive director of the AP for all program, which operated within the Office of Equity and Access, or OEA.

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

And the irony here is that the AP for all program was itself dedicated to equity outcomes, right? It was targeting underserved students.

SPEAKER_00: 5:54

Aaron Powell Exactly. She was instrumental in achieving a huge victory for equity, a 92% increase in advanced placement course participation across schools, which significantly improved access for students of color who had historically been underrepresented in those classes.

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

So her commitment to and her success in achieving these equitable outcomes is strongly established in the record.

SPEAKER_00: 6:16

It is. She's a committed professional achieving the organization's equity goals. Yet even before the new chancellor arrived, there were signs of, you know, internal racial friction. It suggests a pre-existing climate. That's an important point. In one early instance, her subordinate, Akua Atafope, who Chislet had criticized for performance issues, reported Chislet for alleged microaggressions.

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

And what were those?

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

Things like ignoring, dismissing, or interrupting people of color. So the DOE's own Office of Equal Opportunity investigated this complaint. And crucially, while they found some of her comments inappropriate, they explicitly determined that they did not rise to the level of discrimination. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 6:56

Okay. So the foundation of interpersonal conflict was already there, and it was often being framed in these racial terms.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

It was. Then in 2018, Chancellor Richard Carranza arrived and he ushered in this massive institutional-wide push for racial equity that forms the essential policy backdrop of the lawsuit. Trevor Burrus, Right. Carranza came with a clear and uh uncompromising mandate to tackle racial and economic disparities across the massive DOE system. The sources really capture the urgency of this. He reportedly told staff that anyone who drew a paycheck from the DOE would either get on board with my equity platform or leave. Wow. That, quote, sets a tone that is, you know, less about discussion and more about mandatory compliance.

SPEAKER_01: 7:37

Aaron Ross Powell That phrase suggests the policy shift was treated as a kind of institutional loyalty test. And this wasn't just talk. It was backed by significant financial investment.

SPEAKER_00: 7:47

Aaron Powell Indeed. The OEA, Chislit's own department, became the central engine for this platform. It received a staggering$23 million to develop and scale mandatory implicit bias trainings for staff throughout the city's massive school system. And these trainings were explicitly described as the part and parcel and the cornerstone of Carranza's entire equity agenda. This confirms that the trainings themselves were an official high-level municipal policy decision.

SPEAKER_01: 8:18

And we also have evidence that this focus translated directly into high-level staffing decisions, showing that the organizational priority was really fixed on racial outcomes.

SPEAKER_00: 8:26

We do. Sources note that Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza were fixated on racial diversity in the leadership ranks. We have this telling example from executive superintendent Maisha Ross Porter, who later became Chancellor herself, and she stated: when I am selecting principals, teachers, or leaders, after we make the list, we look at it and we count. How many women, how many people of color, and why. I look at the makeup and I literally count, and it's okay for us to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

That testimony is crucial. I mean, it shows a policymaker acknowledging that demographic outcomes are a deliberate, measured factor in official selection processes. That feeds directly into Chislet's argument that race was not a neutral factor within the DOE culture.

SPEAKER_00: 9:08

It connects the highest levels of the administration directly to the idea that race was an overriding factor in employment decisions and organizational focus. And this leads us directly to the trainings themselves, which Chislet claimed were not educational but actively exacerbated the already racially charged workplace.

SPEAKER_01: 9:25

Okay, let's really dedicate some time to the content of these implicit bias trainees, because the language cited in the court records is the very evidence that creates this legally hostile environment.

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

And the language cited is, well, it's shocking in its specificity and its level of essentialism.

SPEAKER_01: 9:40

What do you mean by essentialism?

SPEAKER_00: 9:42

It means treating race as a defining, unchangeable essence of a person's behavior. So in a mandatory training in May 2018, instructors told participants that white colleagues must take a step back and yield to colleagues of color, and most powerfully, to recognize that values of white culture are supremacist.

SPEAKER_01: 10:09

That's an incredible statement coming from an official city training program. This isn't theoretical. This is prescriptive behavior based on race.

SPEAKER_00: 10:16

And it was codified in the training materials. PowerPoint slides explicitly listed traits associated with internalized white superiority, including concepts that are often, you know, lauded in a professional context. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

Like what?

SPEAKER_00: 10:27

Things like individualism, denial, dominating space, and intellectualization.

SPEAKER_01: 10:32

Aaron Powell So traits commonly associated with Western professional norms, like pursuing independent thought or relying on objective data were being redefined within this official DOE context as symptoms of internal racial toxicity.

SPEAKER_00: 10:46

That's precisely the reframing that creates the alleged hostility. The May 2018 retreat featured an even more explicit white supremacy culture list. It asserted that the Protestant work ethic and devotion to the written word were examples of white supremacy.

SPEAKER_01: 11:02

We'd have to stop you there. Devotion to the written word in an educational institution.

SPEAKER_00: 11:07

That's what the record shows. The list also included perfectionism, sense of urgency, and objectivity.

SPEAKER_01: 11:13

Objectivity. This is a crucial hinge point for the lawsuit. When you name things like perfectionism or objectivity as inherent parts of white supremacy culture, you are essentially telling white employees that their efforts to adhere to high standards or to seek factual neutrality are rooted in a harmful discriminatory ideology.

SPEAKER_00: 11:31

It fundamentally redefines workplace critique and expectation.

SPEAKER_01: 11:34

Yes, turns professional standards into grounds for ideological shaming.

SPEAKER_00: 11:37

And that's what happened to Chislet personally. During a QA, instructors told her directly that her interest in excellence was perfectionism and consistent with white supremacy. Wow. Furthermore, the senior executive director of the OEA, Dr. Ruby Ababio Fernandez, who was one of Chislet's future supervisors, set the departmental tone by declaring: there is white toxicity in the air and we all breathe it in.

SPEAKER_01: 12:02

And when a senior leader uses such blunt language in a professional setting, it grants tacit permission for subordinates to use that same language, or worse, in their daily interactions.

SPEAKER_00: 12:11

Exactly. And the hostility escalated from rhetorical to physical singling out. At a mandatory June 2018 training, participants were instructed to answer questions about their white privilege, and then they were physically lined up to reveal the dividing color line of privileges that favored whites.

SPEAKER_01: 12:28

So it's a public physical division and shaming mechanism based solely on race.

SPEAKER_00: 12:33

Yes. And when Chislet, feeling deeply uncomfortable, tried to opt out of an exercise, she declined to list white values. She faced immediate and aggressive peer retaliation that was actively condoned by the facilitators. What happened? The shaming was immediate and public. A participant publicly called her a horrible person who did not deserve to be working with children in New York City. And the crucial piece, the facilitator backed up the accuser.

SPEAKER_01: 13:01

They didn't step in.

SPEAKER_00: 13:01

Quite the opposite. The facilitator stated that failure to stand up to people like Chislett who disagree with these views, children's lives would be at stake.

SPEAKER_01: 13:10

So the message was clear. Objecting to the training methodology was the same as sabotaging the educational welfare of children. And in the court's view, this lack of supervisory defense validated the hostility.

SPEAKER_00: 13:21

It did.

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

This first section establishes that the DOE created, mandated, and financially backed a training environment that encouraged the essentialist racial stereotyping of white employees. And when Chislet objected, she was publicly labeled as a dangerous obstacle, and the leadership just stood by.

SPEAKER_00: 14:17

That is the foundation of the successful hostile work environment claim. It demonstrates that the source of the hostility was not random, but tied directly to the institution's official mandatory programming.

SPEAKER_01: 14:28

Okay, now we move to section two. How this highly charged institutional environment bled into Chislett's daily operations, crippling her ability to manage and ultimately culminating in these adverse employment actions. Right. How frequently was this racialized discourse enforced outside of those formal, you know, mandatory training sessions?

SPEAKER_00: 14:49

The mandate was pervasive. OEA employees were expected to have racial conversations in group settings approximately once a month. This was a sustained departmental expectation that kept the focus squarely on racial identity and the charged language from the trainings.

SPEAKER_01: 15:04

And this is where Chislet's ability to perform her job essentially evaporated. She couldn't perform basic supervisory functions without being racially targeted.

SPEAKER_00: 15:11

The record is very clear on this. When she attempted simple performance management like asking her subordinate, Bianca Renee, why she was late, Renee immediately accused Chislet of making a race-based judgment fueled by her white privilege.

SPEAKER_01: 15:26

So she couldn't even ask why someone was late.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

Renee added that Chislet could not be trusted. And this was a consistent pattern. When Chislet disciplined or managed subordinates, she was routinely labeled white and fragile.

SPEAKER_01: 15:39

So any attempt by the white supervisor to enforce standards or accountability was instantly reframed by the subordinate as an act of racial aggression. That sounds like the definition of an unbearable managerial environment.

SPEAKER_00: 15:51

It creates an unworkable system where performance management is impossible without risking a career-ending accusation. The hostility became so acute that Chislet finally complained to her team that the environment was becoming almost unbearable.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

And the response to that specific choice of words is telling.

SPEAKER_00: 16:07

It is. It weaponizes the concept of suffering itself. Renee responded with, How dare you use the word unbearable? There is black people dying in the street. You don't have the right to use that term. You're coming from the position of white privilege and white supremacy.

SPEAKER_01: 16:22

So it suggests Chislet's own experience of pain was racially illegitimate.

SPEAKER_00: 16:27

It did. And again, Chislet complained to her supervisors who offered no relief or intervention.

SPEAKER_01: 16:32

And we also have evidence that this rhetoric extended beyond just Chislet, right? It shows a general atmosphere of this kind of sentiment, which strengthens the objective test for a hostile work environment.

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

Yes, the case cites an incident involving a white adjacent colleague. This was someone of mixed-race parentage who had married a white man and adopted black daughters. After this colleague monitored Renee's productivity, Chislet overheard Renee call her a slave master, and another employee labeled her a white dominant leader.

SPEAKER_01: 17:03

And that incident is crucial because it shows the hostility was pervasive and organizational, not just some personal feud between Chislet and Renee. These facts, the institutional training, the targeted personal critique, the refusal of management to intervene, they all build the case for severe and pervasive hostility. Let's move to the demotion, which is the discrete action that forms claim one.

SPEAKER_00: 17:27

The demotion occurred on March 20th, 2019. Her supervisors, Dr. Ababa Fernandez and Courtney Wingfield, removed all of Chislett's supervisory responsibility. All of them. All of them. Her pay and title remain the same, but she was stripped of her core function, going from supervising 15 people to supervising no one. And the legal standard confirms that this is a significant diminution of duties and therefore qualifies as an adverse employment action.

SPEAKER_01: 17:53

Right. The DOE, of course, needed to offer a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for this action to defend itself. What was their rationale?

SPEAKER_00: 18:00

Aaron Powell Their stated reason was entirely on its face neutral. The supervisors claimed the team needed time to heal, and that the decision was based on feedback from nearly every member of the team, that Chislet was an ineffective leader who created chaos and a negative work environment.

SPEAKER_01: 18:16

And critically, what was the nature of that feedback?

SPEAKER_00: 18:19

Well, Wingfield testified that the majority of this negative feedback cited was not racial in nature. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 18:24

Okay. And the optics of the subsequent personnel shuffle also provided the appearance of a non-racial managerial reorganization.

SPEAKER_00: 18:32

Aaron Powell It did. Within two days of Chislet being neutralized, many of her duties were immediately transferred to Akua Adiphope.

SPEAKER_01: 18:39

The same subordinate who had initiated the first microaggression complaint against her.

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

The very same. So this move suggests an official endorsement of Adiphope's side of the conflict, regardless of the official non-racial justification for Chislet's demotion.

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

Then the final dramatic chapter was the staff retreat in May 2019, which followed media attention.

SPEAKER_00: 19:01

Yes. Chislet, having retained legal counsel, had spoken anonymously to the New York Post about the hostile environment and the white supremacy culture training. Articles were published just a few days before the retreat.

SPEAKER_01: 19:12

So the DOE knew one of their employees had spoken to the press.

SPEAKER_00: 19:15

They were well aware. And this retreat, it became a public witch hunt.

SPEAKER_01: 19:19

How so?

SPEAKER_00: 19:20

At the May 23rd retreat, OEA executive director Paul Forbes, instead of defending the organization against press leaks, he spoke of individuals sitting amongst us, alongside of whiteness, who were opposing the equity work.

SPEAKER_01: 19:33

So he is targeting the leaker.

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

Then Dionka Renee addressed Chislet by name, stating Chislet was prohibiting this work from happening. Adafolk and others stood up and told Chislet she was not willing to do the equity work and that she should just go.

SPEAKER_01: 19:47

For how long did this go on?

SPEAKER_00: 19:49

About 15 minutes. A direct, public, sustained attack on her character and professional loyalty.

SPEAKER_01: 19:55

And the result.

SPEAKER_00: 19:55

She left humiliated, frightened, and in tears. She required short-term disability leave and felt compelled by the environment to resign in September 2019. And that act of resignation that forms the basis of claim three constructive discharge.

SPEAKER_01: 20:10

The facts certainly paint a picture of an intolerable environment, but legally, that environment wasn't enough to sustain the demotion claim or the constructive discharge claim. Let's pivot to section three and dissect the court's rigorous analysis of why those two claims failed. This is essential to understanding the law's high burden. It is. Okay. Claim one was the discriminatory demotion. The crucial legal standard under Section 1983 for discrete adverse actions is but for causation. Chislitt had to prove that race was the determinative reason, not just one of several reasons, for her demotion.

SPEAKER_00: 20:46

And this is where we really need to unpack the McDonnell Douglas burden shifting framework. It's a three stage test used to evaluate claims of discrimination based on indirect evidence.

SPEAKER_01: 20:57

Walk us through the three stages in the context of Chislet.

SPEAKER_00: 21:00

Stage one. The plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination. This is relatively easy. Chislet, as a Caucasian person, is a member of a protected class when alleging reverse discrimination. She was qualified for her job, she suffered an adverse employment action, and the circumstances suggest discriminatory motive.

SPEAKER_01: 21:18

She checked all those boxes.

SPEAKER_00: 21:19

She satisfied stage one. So stage two, the burden shifts to the employer, the DOE, to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the action.

SPEAKER_01: 21:29

And what did they say?

SPEAKER_00: 21:30

The DOE satisfied this by presenting Wingfield's testimony. They cited the pattern of negative feedback from the team about Chislet's effectiveness, inconsistency, and creating a negative work environment. On paper, that's a legitimate reason.

SPEAKER_01: 21:44

Which brings us to stage three.

SPEAKER_00: 21:45

Right. The burden shifts back to Chislet to prove that the DOE stated reason ineffective leadership was merely a pretext for actual racial discrimination. And this is the stage where the demotion claim failed. Why? Precisely. The court acknowledged the evidence of racial hostility, but Chislet failed to meet the high burden of proving that Winkfield and Ababa Fernandez, the supervisors responsible for the demotion, were motivated by race when they made that decision.

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

So it wasn't enough that the environment was hostile. She had to prove the decision makers themselves acted on that hostility.

SPEAKER_00: 22:19

Yes, or that the nonracial reasons they cited were either entirely false or just insufficient to justify the action.

SPEAKER_01: 22:25

So even if the DOE had a broad discriminatory culture, she couldn't prove that those specific managers acted based on that culture rather than the documented PEM feedback about her leadership style. The court isn't assessing if the employer was fair, only if the stated reason was the true reason.

SPEAKER_00: 22:43

Correct. The court found Chislet failed to produce evidence that the persons responsible for the decision were motivated by racial discrimination. Winkfield, who is also Caucasian, testified the feedback was primarily non-racial. Chislet didn't effectively refute that. Thus, the court couldn't conclude that race was the butt for cause of the demotion itself.

SPEAKER_01: 23:04

So summary judgment was affirmed for claim one.

SPEAKER_00: 23:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 23:07

Now claim three, the constructive discharge, also failed, despite the workplace atmosphere being demonstrably toxic. Why did the court say the conditions, as bad as they were, weren't legally intolerable enough to compel resignation?

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

The standard for constructive discharge is incredibly demanding. It is just about the highest bar in employment law. The plaintiff has to show the employer intentionally created a work atmosphere so intolerable that a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign.

SPEAKER_01: 23:33

Intentionally created. So the employer must have set out to force the employee's hand.

SPEAKER_00: 23:38

Aaron Powell Yes. The conditions have to be worse than just difficult or unpleasant. We're talking about actions typically reserved for active campaigns to force someone out. A massive, immediate pay cut, a sudden relocation to an unworkable office, explicit physical threats.

SPEAKER_01: 23:55

Trevor Burrus And what Chislet faced didn't rise to that level.

SPEAKER_00: 23:57

Aaron Ross Powell Well, while her work environment was certainly found to be abusive and unpleasant, the court determined that the hostility, though severe and pervasive, was cumulative.

SPEAKER_01: 24:06

And the cumulative nature prevented the court from finding the required intentionality to compel her resignation.

SPEAKER_00: 24:12

Exactly. She did not provide evidence that the DOE had specifically and with intent made her conditions intolerable to force her resignation. The hostile environment was deemed an unfortunate sustained consequence of the institutional policies, but not an intentional tool of separation.

SPEAKER_01: 24:30

So that claim also failed.

SPEAKER_00: 24:31

Summary judgment affirmed for claim three.

SPEAKER_01: 24:34

This highlights the paradox. The facts were severe enough to cause her to quit, and severe enough to qualify as a hostile environment, yet not severe or intentional enough to meet that highest legal standard for constructive discharge.

SPEAKER_00: 24:47

The difference is that narrow, and that's why legal nuance matters. Which brings us to claim two, the hostile work environment claim, the one that survived and was sent back for trial.

SPEAKER_01: 24:57

Right. And this success hinged entirely on meeting the objective hostility standard and successfully tying that hostility to the municipality under Monell.

SPEAKER_00: 25:06

That's it.

SPEAKER_01: 25:06

Let's focus on the objective standard first. The court found that a rational juror could find the workplace objectively hostile based on the totality of the circumstances. What specific elements of Chislett's mosaic of evidence were most effective here?

SPEAKER_00: 25:19

The court emphasized the sheer volume and institutional backing of the abuse. The mosaic included, first, the constant drumbeat of negative generalizations about white people delivered during mandatory DOE-sanctioned trainings.

SPEAKER_01: 25:34

So this wasn't isolated, it was the curriculum.

SPEAKER_00: 25:36

It was the curriculum. Second, the highly targeted abuse, like telling her that her interest in excellence was perfectionism and consistent with white supremacy. Third, the fact that ordinary supervisory duties, like questioning lateness, resulted in constant concentrated comments labeling her white and fragile or racist. Yeah. And fourth, the supervisory non-intervention. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 25:58

And that non-intervention is critical because it leads us directly to the Monell policy hurdle, which the first court thought she had failed to clear. The district court essentially said the hostility was departmental, not official DOE policy.

SPEAKER_00: 26:11

And the appellate court fundamentally disagreed. The question became how did she successfully connect the pervasive harassment perpetrated by coworkers and training facilitators, who are not final policymakers, to the municipality itself, thereby satisfying Manel.

SPEAKER_01: 26:27

How did she do it?

SPEAKER_00: 26:28

She did it through the concept of constructive acquiescence in action.

SPEAKER_01: 26:31

Okay, so let's establish the prerequisite, the imputation requirement. She had to show the DOE was aware of the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 26:39

And she had overwhelming evidence. She complained repeatedly to multiple supervisors: Robinson, Ababio Fernandez, Winkfield, Kazi, starting in spring 2018, sometimes in writing, the hostility was not a secret. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 26:52

She even escalated it beyond her direct supervisors.

SPEAKER_00: 26:55

Aaron Ross Powell She did. She had legal counsel contact the DOE in April 2019 about the hostile environment, and the DOE's own internal investigation found her claims of a racially charged environment plausible. Yet they did not take any steps to address the complaints.

SPEAKER_01: 27:11

And the response from her supervisors wasn't just passive neglect, it was often acted dismissal or even scolding.

SPEAKER_00: 27:16

The response demonstrated a deliberate indifference. Supervisors either scolded her, tolerated the racist behavior, or explicitly put the onus of stopping the harassment on Chislet herself. Her leadership coach, Winkfield, even told her the trainings were not going to change.

SPEAKER_01: 27:31

That, quote, the trainings are not going to change, suggests the leadership had prioritized the integrity of the training over the safety of the employee.

SPEAKER_00: 27:39

Exactly. And the most damning quote regarding institutional support came from Executive Director Paul Forbes, who dismissed concerns about the racially divisive meetings by stating, I am not concerned because this chancellor truly has our back.

SPEAKER_01: 27:53

Wow, that explicitly links the tolerated hostile behavior to the highest level of DOE administration, the final policymaker.

SPEAKER_00: 28:01

It does. And this documented continuous supervisory tolerance is what allowed the appellate court to reverse the district court on the Minnell issue.

SPEAKER_01: 28:09

So how did the Second Circuit frame this sustained inaction as a municipal custom?

SPEAKER_00: 28:13

They applied the doctrine of constructive acquiescence or inaction. The standard is high. The harassment must be persistent and widespread. When misconduct reaches that level and senior policymaking officials fail to intervene, their inaction implies constructive acquiescence or tacit authorization of the offensive acts.

SPEAKER_01: 28:31

So the court essentially said the DOE didn't need a formal written rule saying be hostile to white employees. By consistently ignoring, condoning, and failing to curb the pervasive patterned misconduct that was reported upwards for over a year.

SPEAKER_00: 28:47

They made that misconduct its official actionable custom.

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

That's the absolute core of the legal success.

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

It is. The court found that a rational juror could infer that senior policymaking officials had a custom of ignoring or condoning the racial harassment of Caucasian employees.

SPEAKER_01: 29:03

That's a powerful legal distinction. It moves the claim from just bad management, which isn't actionable under Monell, to deliberate indifference or a tacit policy of non-intervention, which is actionable.

SPEAKER_00: 29:15

Yes, and the causation link for Monel was satisfied here by the organizational structure. Ababa Fernandez routinely collected post-session surveys and met regularly with Deputy Chancellor Robinson, who then conveyed findings to Carranza. This established the crucial paper trail proving that the persistent hostility was known at the highest levels. The failure to act transformed private misconduct into public policy.

SPEAKER_01: 29:37

The court, in its conclusion, issued a very strong warning to public employers.

SPEAKER_00: 29:42

A huge one. The Second Circuit explicitly warned the DOE that when employment trainings discuss any race, quote, with a constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language, the organization risks liability for creating a hostile work environment.

SPEAKER_01: 29:59

So this whole case then hinges on the difference between discrete adverse actions, the demotion and discharge, which required direct proof that race was the butt-for cause tied to a formal policy. Which she failed to prove. And the cumulative harm of a hostile environment, which required proof of sustained supervisory tolerance.

SPEAKER_00: 30:17

And that tolerance allowed her to clear the Monell hurdle through the mechanism of inaction. This ruling provides a vital roadmap for future litigants, showing that the lack of internal controls can be considered a de facto policy of discrimination.

SPEAKER_01: 30:30

As we wrap up this deep dive into Chislet VNYC DOE, let's transition to the major lasting insights this case offers the modern professional and organization.

SPEAKER_00: 30:38

First, we need to reiterate the immense legal difficulty involved in Section 1983 employment claims, particularly that but four causation standard. Right. For any discrete action like a demotion, the employer only needs to produce a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason. If the plaintiff cannot provide sufficient evidence that the reason is a total fabrication, not just unfair, but a lie to hide racial animus, that claim will fail.

SPEAKER_01: 31:05

And Chislett's failure to fully dismantle the ineffective leadership pretext highlights just how hard that framework is to overcome.

SPEAKER_00: 31:12

It really does.

SPEAKER_01: 31:13

Second, the vital difference between the claims that failed and the one that survived. The success wasn't based on proving a single action was racist, but rather proving that the atmosphere itself was racially hostile and crucially that the organization tolerated it.

SPEAKER_00: 31:27

Aaron Powell Right. It tells us that the city successfully hid its intent on the piece of paper, the demotion form, but failed miserably to hide its intent through the two years of documented workplace atmosphere.

SPEAKER_01: 31:37

And third, and this is probably most broadly applicable for any manager or public official, emphasize the power of inaction in establishing municipal liability under Minnel.

SPEAKER_00: 31:48

A city agency can be held liable not just for what it explicitly dictates, but for what it consistently fails to do. When supervisory personnel are fully aware of pervasive patterned misconduct and choose to ignore it, that inaction is legally judged to be tacit authorization.

SPEAKER_01: 32:05

This case is a giant siren to all public agencies. It says you can mandate an equity policy, but if the execution of that policy, specifically the language and methodology used in mandatory training, is so polarizing that it creates a sustained, racially hostile environment for any group, and you fail to intervene.

SPEAKER_00: 32:23

You will face liability. You have to audit your content and actively monitor the consequences of the training itself.

SPEAKER_01: 32:29

The court's warning about the constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language means organizations can no longer just copy-paste standardized DEI materials without legal risk.

SPEAKER_00: 32:39

Absolutely not. They must audit content for essentialism and, crucially, establish a rigorous, documented process for responding to complaints when the training itself appears to be the engine of harassment.

SPEAKER_01: 32:51

That brings us to our final provocative thought for you to consider, building directly on the Second Circuit's ruling.

SPEAKER_00: 32:57

If a mandatory training program, one designed with the highest intention to dismantle systemic inequities, utilizes language or techniques that immediately result in the constant, essentialist, and negative stereotyping of a specific group, at what precise legal and practical moment does the municipality's failure to immediately and aggressively curtail that resulting hostility transition from mere managerial negligence into legally actionable, tacit authorization for discrimination?

SPEAKER_01: 33:26

This case makes it clear that the line between bad management and unconstitutional custom is crossed when the knowledge of the harassment reaches high level policymakers and they choose to protect the policy rather than the employee. It is a heavy but essential thought for anyone navigating the modern professional and legal landscape.

SPEAKER_00: 33:43

It really is.

SPEAKER_01: 33:43

That's a wrap on this deep dive. Thank you for trusting us with your sources. We'll see you next time.