BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. — The U.S. Department of Justice announced a racial discrimination lawsuit on Thursday against Bartow County, alleging the county retaliated against two Black employees of the Road Department in 2019 in firing them.
According to a release from the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, Ryan K. Buchanan, county employee Carlen Loyal was fired in 2019 after complaining to a supervisor that a white coworker called him the N-word in a text message.
The complaint led to a meeting with both the white coworker and the county human resources director in which the HR director allegedly "subjected Loyal to additional, severe racial harassment."
In that meeting Loyal, a county employee for nearly 10 years, was also asked if he had told anyone else about the text message. He said he'd only told his brother-in-law, Bobby Turner, another employee in the Road Department.
"Just over two weeks later, the County accused Loyal and Turner of misconduct and terminated their employment," the U.S. Attorney's Office release said. "The complaint alleges that Loyal and Turner, each of whom had been promoted several times, had no prior history of discipline with the County before Loyal complained about race discrimination."
The government is alleging Bartow County violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "when it subjected former employee Carlen Loyal to a racially hostile work environment, retaliated against former employee Bobby Turner, and fired both men, who are Black."
The U.S. Attorney's Office release said the government is seeking both compensation for Loyal and Turner with this lawsuit as well as to "require the County to develop and implement policies that would prevent discrimination and retaliation."
The release did not name the HR director who allegedly harassed Loyal after he made his complaint, nor did it name the supervisor he initially complained to or the coworker who allegedly sent the racist text message.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the chief of the DOJ's Civil Rights, said in a statement, “No employee should have to endure racial harassment or retaliation in the workplace, especially racial slurs."
“No one should be forced to labor in an environment where employers condone racial slurs and employees are expected to tolerate them,” U.S. Attorney Buchanan added in his own statement. “It is also unacceptable for an employer to foster a work environment where employees with the courage to report such abhorrent behavior experience retaliation from supervisors and face termination of their jobs. Our office will vigorously and continuously leverage our resources to address this type of illegal discrimination in the workplace.”
