Whether an employee's exposure to the N-word in the workplace is severe enough to send his Title VII claim to a trier of fact

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discriminatory conduct in the workplace that is “sufficiently severe or pervasive” to create a hostile work environment. Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67 (1986). Meritor and Harris v. Forklitt Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993), stated that the “mere utterance” of an offensive epithet does not create a hostile work environment. But in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998), the Court said that one “extremely serious” incident could be sufficient. Courts of appeals disagree as to whether a single use of a racial epithet is a “mere utterance” that can never support a claim or an “extremely serious” incident that can. The questions presented are: 1. Whether an employee’s exposure to the N-word in the workplace is severe enough to send his Title VII claim to a trier of fact. 2. Whether and in what circumstances racial epithets in the workplace are “extremely serious” incidents sufficient to create a hostile work environment under Title VII, rather than nonactionable “mere utterances.”