A federal appeals court ruled that former Seattle employee Joshua Diemert presented enough evidence of alleged race-based hostility tied to workplace incidents and the city’s Race and Social Justice Initiative to let a jury decide his hostile-work-environment claims.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal appeals court has revived a white former Seattle employee’s racial harassment lawsuit, ruling that a jury should decide whether years of alleged workplace incidents associated with the city’s race-focused training and equity program created an unlawful racially hostile work environment.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed part of a lower court ruling that had dismissed Joshua Diemert’s lawsuit against the City of Seattle, allowing his hostile-work-environment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Washington Law Against Discrimination to proceed.
The Sept. 28 decision does not find Seattle liable or hold that diversity, equity or race-conscious workplace training is inherently illegal. Instead, the judges concluded that, if a jury accepts Diemert’s account of disputed events, the frequency and severity of the alleged racial comments and treatment could satisfy the legal standard for a hostile workplace.
“The workplace incidents at issue were sufficiently numerous, frequent, and severe to create a triable issue as to the existence of a racially hostile work environment,” the court said in its published opinion.
The ruling was first reported by Just the News as a potentially significant warning to public employers using race-focused training programs.
Diemert, who worked for Seattle’s Human Services Department, sued in 2022 after resigning the previous year. He alleged that the city’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, or RSJI, combined with years of comments and workplace incidents, subjected him to racial hostility because he is white.
The city disputes portions of his account, and the appellate court emphasized that the factual record had to be viewed in Diemert’s favor at this stage because Seattle had obtained summary judgment before a jury trial.
“The Defendants vigorously dispute some of these facts and Diemert’s version of disputed facts has not been proven,” the court cautioned.
The official Ninth Circuit opinion says Seattle created RSJI in 2004 with the stated goal of eliminating institutional racism and racial disparities in city government and the broader community.
Employees in Diemert’s department were expected to participate in two RSJI-related activities each year. Those activities included trainings on racial justice, poverty, gender and other social issues, while the city also sponsored voluntary racial and ethnic affinity groups.
According to court records, some training descriptions identified intended participants by race. One listed “City employees that identify as white allies,” another was for employees who “identify as white,” and separate offerings were described for employees who identified as people of color.
Diemert did not base his case solely on the existence of those programs.
His lawsuit, originally filed after years of disputes with the city, described a series of incidents beginning in 2015 that he said transformed the broader workplace into a racially hostile environment.
The appeals court concluded those allegations, taken together rather than individually, were enough to require a trial.
One comparison cited by the panel involved an earlier Ninth Circuit racial-harassment case in which a Hispanic tradesman endured repeated racial and personal slurs from a white supervisor over several years.
Title VII, the judges said, applies the same prohibition against race-based workplace discrimination regardless of the plaintiff’s race.
The broader dispute comes amid legal and political scrutiny of race-conscious employment programs across government, schools and other public institutions. Similar controversies have emerged involving Seattle Public Schools as well as the region’s library and prosecutor systems, although those disputes involve different facts and legal claims.
The ruling is particularly notable because the panel consisted of judges appointed by Democratic presidents: Chief Judge Mary Murguia, nominated to the appeals court by President Barack Obama; Judge William Fletcher, appointed by President Bill Clinton; and Judge Lucy Koh, appointed by President Joe Biden.
The Ninth Circuit itself has become more closely divided ideologically following multiple appointments during Trump administrations.
Diemert’s attorney, Laura D’Agostino of the Pacific Legal Foundation, said the decision confirms that federal civil-rights protections apply equally to employees of every racial background.
“Title VII protects every employee from a racially hostile work environment, regardless of race,” D’Agostino said. “No one should have to endure years of racial hostility at work.”
Seattle has not conceded wrongdoing.
“We are reviewing the decision and discussing potential next steps for the City,” Seattle City Attorney’s Office communications director Alan Pyke told Just the News.
The city did not tell the publication whether it continues to use the same trainings or substantially similar material.
Supreme Court Precedent Strengthened Majority-Group Claims
The Ninth Circuit’s decision comes after the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a legal rule that had required some majority-group plaintiffs to clear an additional hurdle when bringing employment discrimination claims.
U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead had granted Seattle summary judgment on Diemert’s claims in February 2025.
Whitehead, a Biden appointee who received support during confirmation from organizations including the National Employment Lawyers Association and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, found that Diemert had not presented sufficient evidence for his claims to proceed.
The judge had initially allowed portions of the case to move forward but later entered summary judgment for Seattle.
While acknowledging that federal law bars race discrimination regardless of the victim’s race, Whitehead wrote that “history and common sense tell us” discrimination against majority groups is “rare and unusual.”
He also concluded that diversity, equity and inclusion programs “are not by their very nature discriminatory against whites.”
Diemert, Whitehead found, had not shown that Seattle’s program or his workplace experiences were sufficiently severe or pervasive to support his hostile-environment theory.
Several months later, however, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services that Title VII does not impose a heightened evidentiary requirement on plaintiffs simply because they belong to a racial, sexual or other majority group.
The case involved a heterosexual Ohio state employee who alleged discrimination based on sexual orientation after losing an expected promotion and later being demoted. The Supreme Court vacated the lower-court judgment after rejecting the so-called “background circumstances” rule.
The justices said Title VII protects every “individual” under the same standards.
By requiring majority-group plaintiffs to demonstrate special “background circumstances” suggesting that their employer was unusual enough to discriminate against a majority, the Supreme Court said lower courts had imposed a requirement that does not appear in the statute.
“Our case law thus makes clear that the standard for proving disparate treatment under Title VII does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group,” the Supreme Court said in its unanimous Ames decision.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department subsequently entered Diemert’s appeal as a friend of the court, arguing in a brief supporting his Title VII position that federal employment law applies without different standards based on racial identity.
The Ninth Circuit expressly cited Ames in explaining that Title VII does not distinguish between majority- and minority-group employees.
The panel also pointed to litigation involving former Penn State Abington professor Zack De Piero, whose race-discrimination lawsuit challenged workplace diversity practices and remains involved in Third Circuit proceedings.
In the De Piero litigation, a federal district court said workplace trainings featuring “a constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language” about a race could potentially support a discrimination claim.
The Ninth Circuit cited that reasoning while emphasizing that legitimate workplace training does not receive blanket immunity from ordinary civil-rights standards.
Diemert Alleges Years of Race-Based Comments and Treatment
Diemert began working for Seattle’s Human Services Department in 2013, helping determine eligibility for the city’s utility assistance program.
According to his lawyers, he performed well and received the department’s maximum achievement award about three years into his employment.
His attorneys said after the appellate ruling that Diemert was nevertheless subjected over time to racial comments, training and employment decisions that he believed treated white employees differently.
“Diemert alleged coworkers ‘directed racially charged language at him, trainers told employees that racism is in white people’s DNA, and a supervisor pressured him to give up a lead role so that a person of color could be promoted,’” his lawyers said.
The appellate opinion recounts approximately 10 incidents spanning several years.
In 2015, Diemert alleged, he was discouraged from applying for a supervisory position so that it could go to a minority employee. He said he subsequently was “required to perform the responsibilities” of the higher-level job “without receiving the commensurate title or pay.”
That same year, according to the record, a manager questioned what a “straight white male” like Diemert could “possibly offer” the department.
In 2016, Diemert said another manager told him it was “impossible” for white people to experience racism.
A supervisor allegedly “encouraged” him in 2017 to leave a lead position so it could be given to a minority employee.
Diemert also said a coworker called him “racist” and blamed white people for “all atrocities.”
His original 27-page complaint alleges that during a 2019 RSJI-related event, he overheard trainers describe white people as “cannibals” and “like the devil” and say that racism was in their DNA.
Another supervisor allegedly confronted Diemert between 2019 and 2020, called him a “colonist,” said he possessed “white privilege” and told him he was “to blame for all injustices in the United States.”
Seattle disputes some of the factual allegations.
The appellate judges did not decide whether those statements occurred as Diemert described or whether witnesses would ultimately find his account credible. Their task at summary judgment was to determine whether, assuming a jury could believe his evidence, there was enough for the case to continue.
The panel decided there was.
Diemert also alleged coworkers became hostile after an internal discussion concerning laws restricting critical race theory instruction.
He disagreed with a department executive who criticized such bans as efforts to obscure historical racial events, including the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Diemert viewed some of the ensuing comments as attacks directed at white employees generally.
Two social-media items cited in reporting on the case circulated commentary about the appellate dispute and employment claims and the broader debate over Seattle’s training program.
The core of the court’s decision, however, rests on the evidentiary record developed in Diemert’s lawsuit rather than online commentary about the case.
The panel said the evidence, if accepted at trial, could show Diemert “was subjected to a series of racially offensive statements and generalizations bearing little or no connection to legitimate training efforts,” was discouraged or denied advancement because of race and received little support from supervisors after complaining.
That language is important because the court did not say employers cannot discuss race, historical discrimination or racial inequities.
Title VII’s hostile-environment standard requires conduct based on race that is unwelcome and sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment.
The court determined a reasonable jury could conclude Diemert’s evidence meets that test.
Other Claims Remain Dismissed
Diemert did not win every part of his appeal.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed Whitehead’s dismissal of his constructive-discharge claim, rejecting his contention that working conditions had become so intolerable he effectively had no choice but to resign in 2021.
The panel also upheld summary judgment for Seattle on several disparate-treatment and retaliation theories.
Those included claims based on the city’s alleged failure to investigate his discrimination complaints, an initial refusal to extend his medical leave and alleged unfair treatment from one supervisor.
The judges also rejected Diemert’s Equal Protection Clause challenge based on Seattle’s race-aligned affinity groups because they found he had not demonstrated the personal injury necessary for standing.
The court assumed for purposes of its analysis that some affinity groups or trainings might involve express racial classifications but did not decide that question because Diemert had not shown that any such classification personally harmed him.
The result is therefore narrower than a ruling invalidating Seattle’s entire Race and Social Justice Initiative.
What returns to the district court is Diemert’s claim that the cumulative workplace environment constituted race-based harassment prohibited by Title VII and Washington law.
The panel’s reasoning parallels another recent appellate decision involving Leslie Chislett, a white New York City education employee whose racial-hostile-environment suit was revived by the 2nd Circuit.
Chislett alleged she attended bias trainings where white culture was described as “supremacist,” participants were told society breathes in “white toxicity,” and employees were asked to write “white values” on a poster and physically position themselves according to their “proximity to white privilege.”
She also alleged that racial themes from the training spread into ordinary workplace interactions.
“Racialized comments from trainings spilled over into the broader workplace,” the Chislett ruling said.
Black subordinates allegedly called her racist or untrustworthy when she enforced workplace expectations, while others told her she had been “socialized as a white person to be defensive.”
The Second Circuit concluded that allegations involving both formal training and subsequent workplace conduct could not simply be considered in isolation.
The Ninth Circuit took a similar approach with Diemert.
Whether Seattle ultimately violated civil-rights law will now depend on the evidence presented when the surviving claims return to the Western District of Washington.
A jury could reject Diemert’s version of events, find that the alleged conduct was not sufficiently severe or pervasive, or determine that Seattle is not legally responsible for it.
But the city can no longer dispose of the hostile-work-environment claims at summary judgment on the existing record.
For public and private employers using race-focused workplace programming, the ruling reinforces a more general principle following Ames: civil-rights laws protect employees from race discrimination under the same legal standard regardless of whether they belong to a racial majority or minority.
The Ninth Circuit did not rule that equity training itself violates Title VII.
It ruled that when race-focused training is combined with repeated race-based comments, disputed promotion decisions and other alleged treatment severe or pervasive enough to alter working conditions, an employer may face a jury on whether the workplace crossed the line from education or policy discussion into unlawful racial harassment.
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