‘A Bunch of Monkeys’: White Manager Harassed Black Worker at Iowa Storage Company, Told Him His Locs Looked Like ‘Worms.’ Now Company Must Pay
A Black man fired by a Des Moines, Iowa, storage systems manufacturing business in 2022 has won a verdict of $205,000 after a Polk County jury found the company and one of its managers racially harassed and then retaliated against him for complaining about a hostile work environment. Devin Ellis started working in December 2021 as a lead installer at Storage and Design Group Inc., which makes and installs lockers, shelving and other storage products. At the time he was hired, Ronald Patterson, an owner and top manager at the company, allegedly told him during his interview that he could offer Ellis $22 an hour, and then ended the meeting by saying, “Oh, one last thing. I need you to cut your dreadlocks.” Patterson would continue to browbeat Ellis about his dreadlocks throughout his employment, the lawsuit (obtained by Atlanta Black Star) claims, asking him to cut his hair at least 20 times during the nine months of his employment. Once Patterson allegedly told Ellis that his hair looked unprofessional and like “worms.” (Patterson later argued that he told all employees with long hair he’d prefer them to cut it shorter but never insisted that they do so). A jury found that Storage and Design Group, Inc. in Des Moines, Iowa, racially discriminated against former employee Devin Michael Ellis and awarded him $205,300 in their verdict in a civil trial on August 4, 2025. (Photo: Storage and Design Group Facebook page) Ellis also alleges that Patterson often referred to African-American employees as “a bunch of monkeys” and told them to “stop monkeying around,” but did not make such comments to white employees. When Ellis told him his racially offensive comments was making him uncomfortable, Patterson accused Ellis of being racist toward white people and urged him “to just admit it,” the complaint says, despite Ellis explaining that he was not racist toward white people and that his mother and younger brother are white.On one occasion, Patterson met Ellis’ white brother and said his brother was “the better looking one," the lawsuit claims. During an out-of-town work trip, when Ellis led a crew of five men — three Black, two white — on a project, he stayed in the main bedroom of a hotel suite with an attached bathroom, per a court filing by Ellis. When a white employee, Anthony Straylee, insisted on using that bathroom instead of a shared bathroom to shower one night, Ellis refused to give him access. This prompted Straylee to send a text to manager Joe Schwarz that said, “You know how it is with these people,” and indicated that he “didn’t want to stay with Black people," the plaintiff's filing claimed, citing a deposition. Afterwards, Straylee allegedly told Schwarz that he didn’t want to work with Ellis and thought he should be fired. Straylee mentioned that some of his relatives had been members of the Ku Klux Klan, but denied that he himself was racist, according to a deposition of Schwarz. Patterson later recounted in a deposition that the hotel incident and the conflict with Straylee, whom he considered to be “a straight shooter,” “was kind of a turning point in s employment” because “he was not the guy he was hired to be” and had become “obstinate.” Following several informal complaints to both Schwarz and Patterson about Patterson’s conduct, and seeing no remediation in response to the situation, Ellis filed a discrimination complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission on Aug. 8, 2022. On Sept. 13, 2022, Ellis made another complaint of discrimination to both managers, and met with them shortly thereafter and described the incidents in which he’d experienced discrimination, including comments by Patterson. According to Ellis, during that meeting Patterson “admitted to having made racial comments” but was defensive and “tried to minimize them by saying they were jokes.” Patterson also recalled during a deposition that he said about Ellis, “We can’t do this. We can’t have some guy trying to bring down the company.” A week later, Ellis was fired by Schwarz, which the lawsuit, filed in July 2023, says was in retaliation for his filing a civil rights complaint. Patterson's conduct, the lawsuit said, “was not only pervasive, but it was also severe. … The law is clear that the use of the monkey epithet is sufficiently degrading and humiliating to alter an employee’s work environment.” The lawsuit also alleged that during his employment, Ellis had been promoted and praised by his immediate supervisor; however, he was paid less than similarly situated white employees and was given less desirable work than white employees because of his race. In her order denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case in March, Polk County District Court Judge Samantha Gronewald noted that the circumstances surrounding Ellis’ termination were disputed between the parties. Patterson and Storage and Design Group contend that Ellis was fired for insubordination and for taking a work vehicle without permission. Ellis had used a work truck to get to and from work, as well as to job sites, and took it home on weekends, he says, with permission from a supervisor at the company. He contends there was no problem with this arrangement until he began complaining about racism and a hostile work environment. The defendants counter that after the Sept. 13 meeting, Ellis was told by the company that he could keep the truck during the week, but that he now had to return it on weekends. Ellis did not return the truck on Friday, Sept. 16, and ignored an email reminding him to do so, the company claims. When he reported to work on Sept. 20, he was told that he was fired, a decision made by Patterson on the grounds that Ellis had been insubordinate. Noting that the company had not followed its own progressive discipline policies, which call for an employee to be given verbal and written warnings by their supervisor before they are terminated, and that Ellis was fired soon after making internal and governmental discrimination complaints, Judge Gronewald wrote that “a reasonable jury could find that Defendants’ reasons are pretext for retaliation, and, thus, find for Ellis.” Five months later, a seven-member jury did just that, deciding on Aug. 1 that Ellis had proved his claims of workplace harassment/hostile work environment and retaliation against the defendants, and also affirming on the verdict form that Patterson was "personally involved" in both the offensive conduct and the retaliation. The jury awarded Ellis $51,000 for emotional distress related to the hostile work environment and $154,000 for retaliation, for a total of $205,300. One of Ellis’s attorneys, Stuart Higgins, said in a statement on Aug. 4 that after three years of litigation, his law firm and his client finally were able to hold Patterson accountable in court. “We are pleased jurors recognized what Devin Ellis knew all along,” Higgins said. “The jury found that our client suffered severe emotional harm due to persistent racial discrimination in the workplace — and that his employer unlawfully fired him in retaliation for speaking out,” he posted on Facebook. “All the credit goes to Devin for his courage to stand up for himself and his African-American coworkers,” said Higgins. Storage and Design Group and Ronald Patterson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
