‘Smells Like Ni—ers’: Black Worker Was Racially Harassed, Denied a Promotion for 24 Years. Now, He’s Suing West Virginia Town for Violating Settlement Agreement
A Black man who has worked as a custodian and laborer for the city of Morgantown, West Virginia, for 24 years without a promotion amid a racially hostile work environment is suing the city for discrimination after it allegedly breached a 2020 settlement agreement promising to treat him better. Lamar Johnson, now 48, started working for the Morgantown public works department shortly after he left the Marine Corps in his early 20s. He was hired as a laborer/clerk, a low-paid job that encompasses various duties. For Johnson, that has meant working as a janitor and a sort of gopher in the city garage, where over the years he was also tasked with making deliveries and managing inventory, while working among mostly white employees. Morgantown, West Virginia, employee Lamar Johnson is suing the city for racial discrimination and breach of contract after it allegedly failed to train or promote him after 24 years of employment. (Photo: Lamar Johnson) According to his lawsuit filed on Aug. 8 in the Circuit Court of Monongalia County (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star), Johnson has sought but never received a promotion, while a steady stream of white co-workers with less experience and seniority have advanced within the department. In 2018, after another white co-worker in his department was promoted, he filed a grievance with the city about its failure to promote him, which was denied. After that, the complaint says, he described his work experience as “hell,” as he was ostracized by co-workers and excluded from previous employment duties, including processing purchase orders. Racial hostility in the workplace also ramped up, he says, including incidents in which a white employee exiting a city truck allegedly said, “It smells like ni—ers in there;” finding the word, “ni—er” carved onto a wooden cubbyhole wall at his job site; and encountering a noose hanging in the city garage.Johnson and others reported these incidents to their superiors, but no corrective action was taken, the complaint says. In response to the noose, Johnson’s supervisor allegedly said, “We don’t necessarily know that was meant to be racist.” Another Black employee who held the role of laborer/clerk for 27 years without a single promotion, Kevin Marshall, recalled the term “ni—er-rigging” being used frequently in the city garage, among other racist jokes, the lawsuit says. He “lost all hope of being treated fairly” and resigned. In July 2020, Johnson hired attorney Sean Cook to pursue a discrimination claim with the West Virginia Human Rights Commission. Prior to a mediation session with the city, Johnson submitted a statement outlining his complaints. Among them, he noted that a new inventory system had been implemented in the public works department, and that he was not included in the training for it, making it harder for him to advance in his job. His statement also included a lengthy affidavit from Alexandra Stockdale, then the city's public works director, who said that employees in the city garage had complained to her that Johnson “often played the ‘race card.’” Alexandra Stockdale, the former director of the Morgantown, West Virginia, Public Works Department, complained of "persistent racist behavior" among department workers in 2020. (Photo: City of Morgantown website) For her part, Stockdale, who is white, said she had observed “persistent racist behavior” in the city garage, and wanted city officials to address it. She cited an email she had sent to the city’s human resources director, John Bihun, in January of 2020 outlining a series of incidents and encounters involving racial bias and explicit racism. Among them was a birthday party for a city employee at a local restaurant, she attended during which Christopher Maloney, a white co-worker of Johnson’s in the city garage, began complaining about his job, and said, “You wouldn’t like it, either, if you had to work with a bunch of ni—ers.” The following Monday, Stockdale reported Maloney’s racist comment to the city manager, the HR director, and the city attorney, reminding them in an email that Maloney had responsibility for taking care of inmates from the local detention center who helped with cleaning up the city, many of whom were African-American. “Racism cannot be tolerated; especially from him,” she wrote. “Something needs to be done.” Maloney was initially given a warning, and then, after Stockdale complained, a five-day suspension without pay for using racial slurs. Stockdale told the HR director that Maloney should be fired and warned that not doing so was “an example of negligent retention and creating a hostile work environment for anyone of color in the Public Works Department.”George Leite please edit this sentence: The city of Morgantown has a population of 30,000 that is predominantly white and about 4 percent Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city government currently has about 10 Black employees among a total workforce of about 330, Cook said. After Maloney was disciplined, Stockdale said she witnessed Johnson’s co-workers, some of whom had Confederate flags on their vehicles, harassing Johnson and making comments about him being lazy and being in love with her. She said she was called a “ni—er-lover” by some of them. During a 10-hour mediation session via videoconference (due to the pandemic) in August of 2020, Johnson testified that the racial hostility in the city garage had caused him to develop high blood pressure, anger and mood swings that made it difficult to enjoy time with his family.Once a proud graduate of Morgantown High School and a former Marine, he said his self-confidence had been destroyed because he had been at the same job for over 20 years, had not been promoted, and had received only modest cost-of-living raises, which still did not amount to “real money.” He said he was ashamed that he is still “just cleaning bathrooms” but that he had to keep his job because he “needs a paycheck” for his kids. A settlement was reached during the mediation session between Johnson and the city of Morgantown in which the city admitted no liability but agreed to provide training to Johnson in its New World purchase order system and to provide him with regular annual performance reviews, which he’d never had. Johnson, who agreed not to file a lawsuit, also received a confidential monetary settlement from the city. Five years later, Cook is once again representing Johnson in his new litigation against Morgantown, which claims the city has breached the settlement agreement. More than a year after the settlement, in September 2021, after multiple requests, Johnson finally received training in the New World purchase order system — but only for 45 minutes, the lawsuit claims, which was “woefully insufficient” and did not enable him to achieve proficiency. When he subsequently attempted to navigate the system, his supervisors said that he was performing tasks too slowly and that he was no longer allowed to perform tasks related to purchase orders. Then the software program was removed from his computer without any explanation, he says. When Johnson applied for promotions, his supervisors told him that his lack of knowledge and competence in using the New World system precluded him from advancing, a Kafkaesque catch-22. Johnson was also “intentionally excluded from numerous other trainings and educational programs since 2020,” including new procedures related to logging inventory and new phone systems, the lawsuit says. Additionally, locks were changed at the facility by his supervisor, who Johnson says refused to provide him a key to access critical areas of the facility crucial to performing his job duties. Meanwhile, his white co-workers who began in the public works department as laborer/clerks, as well as outside job applicants, have interviewed for jobs requiring knowledge of its purchasing and inventory systems and have been promoted or hired — and then subsequently trained in those systems, the lawsuit alleges. Johnson also has still not received an annual performance review, or even a written job description, both of which are required by the city’s employment policies, Cook said. “Lamar has now worked for the City for approximately 24 years and has been denied upward mobility and promotions despite his service and experience,” the complaint contends. “Despite the settlement …it is obvious that the culture of race discrimination and additional unlawful conduct by the city has continued.” “He deserves a chance,” Cook told Atlanta Black Star. “He deserves equal training as others who are Caucasian have been afforded, and the opportunity to show that he possesses the aptitude to progress in his career. To hold him back due to a supposed lack of proficiency, when they refuse to train him adequately and in good faith, is an absurd pretext,” he said. The lawsuit accuses the city of breach of contract, disparate treatment on the basis of race, retaliation, negligent training, and negligence, in violation of West Virginia common law and human rights law. Johnson seeks a jury trial to determine economic damages for loss of income (front and back pay) for which he would have been eligible but for the alleged discriminatory conduct, as well as compensatory damages for physical, emotional and mental distress, humiliation, depression and inconvenience, and legal costs.Attorneys for the city of Morgantown did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The city has 30 days, or until September 7, to file a response to the lawsuit.
