How bad or racist is it fo
r a white man to call an African American man a boy? This is what was at stake in a court battle between Tyson Foods and an employee. On Nov. 1, the federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down a $1.3M award to John Hithon, an employee of Tyson Foods, who sued the company after his boss, Tom Hatley, called him a “boy” when he applied for a promotion.
Hithon sued, saying that Hatley’s use of “boy” proved racial animus, and won. Subsequently an appeals court overturned the ruling. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to trial and stated:
“The speaker’s meaning may depend on various factors including context, tone of voice, local custom and historical usage.”
The entire case covered more than 14 years, two jury trials, three Circuit Court of Appeals rulings and a Supreme Court opinion. In 1995 Hithon accused the company of racial discrimination in promotion decisions while working in a Tyson chicken processing plant in Gadsden, Ala. A white employee from another plant was promoted to shift manager over Hithon, an African American who already worked at the Gadsden plant.
The company’s argument for not promoting Hithon was that the plant was performing poorly and they desired someone outside of the plant to give it new direction. Although Hithon was qualified for the job, he was passed over. This is what started the entire legal battle. As part of Hithon’s case, he claimed Hatley called him “boy” in a racially derogatory manner — a claim that took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ordered the Circuit Court to look more closely at the context in which the supervisor used “boy.”
The court basically stated that Hatley may in fact be a racist, however use of the word “boy” alone, out of context and without more support, doesn’t prove that he is. As a result, they have overruled the prior two decisions; the first that awarded the plaintiff $300,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
