Colorado corrections officer’s lawsuit over racial sensitivity training tossed out (again)

A Colorado corrections officer lost a lawsuit on Monday against his former employer over its mandatory DEI training, making it the second time his case was dismissed. The case is the latest in a string of cases where DEI training has ultimately been found to be lawful.

The latest. In the case of Young v. Colorado Department of Corrections, the plaintiff alleged that his previous employer’s racial sensitivity training created a hostile work environment. The case was initially tossed out in 2024 when the court held that the training alone could not be used as the basis for hostile work environment claims.

According to the latest appeal that tossed out the case, the plaintiff submitted an updated complaint alleging the training “compromised security” and that leaders “acted upon the training for disciplinary decisions.” Young also alleged that specific terminology from the training, such as “white fragility” and “white exceptionalism,” contributed to the hostile work environment. However, the court found that the additional allegations against the training didn’t appear to have a direct impact on the plaintiff’s job function or how he communicated with other employees, nor proved that “the training program and its aftermath would have created a hostile work environment.”

Young also alleged that “employees had to endorse the race-based ideology” in the training, but the employer made it clear that employees were not expected to change their beliefs for the sake of the program, according to the appeal.

In response to allegations that on-going training would affect Young’s job and that he would need to endorse its ideologies, the court noted that “Mr. Young experienced only a single training session and he quit four months later.” And since the training’s language stated no need for employees to change their beliefs, the court ruled, “Mr. Young’s allegations do not plausibly allege a pattern of abuse against White employees who disagreed with the training.”

Still, Young isn’t quite ready to concede defeat and may file a petition with the Supreme Court. “We are disappointed by the Court’s decision, and continue to believe that [the plaintiff] suffered a hostile work environment when the Colorado Department of Corrections’ official training asserted that he was a white supremacist, and needed to treat prisoners and his colleagues differently based on race,” William Trachman, an attorney for the plaintiff, told HR Dive.

Zoom out. Other suits involving anti-bias trainings have been determined in the favor of employers. Courts have found that the plaintiffs can’t prove that anti-bias training inherently causes a hostile work environment.

David Glasgow, co-founder of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University School of Law, told HR Brew that it’s always been clear to him that lawsuits targeting DEI and anti-bias trainings would be a tough sell to the courts “because the vast majority of DEI training programs are pretty banal.” The trainings, he said, are usually “bland” discussions about bias in the workplace.

“It’s really important for leaders to differentiate between different kinds of DEI programs when they’re figuring out which ones are risky and which ones are not,” Glasgow said. “To the extent that people are worried about training programs, I think they should chill out a bit.”