When company policies go wrong – Nursing home’s practice leads to Title VII case

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Abstract: If some nursing home residents don’t want to be served by employees of different races, can the home accommodate those requests? One employee who worked in such a home, and suffered racially tinged comments and epithets from co-workers, filed a complaint alleging the existence of a racially motivated hostile work environment. The court agreed, explaining that a company’s desire to cater to the perceived racial preferences of its customers wasn’t a defense under Title VII. A sidebar to this article looks at a gender-focused case that had a different result. Chaney v. Plainfield Healthcare Center, No. 09-3661, July 20, 2010 (7th Cir.) Veleanu v. Beth Isr. Med. Ctr., LEXIS 13948, 2000 (U.S. Dist. S.D.N.Y.)