The Federal Courts of Appeals continue to make it difficult to prove that you are discriminated against even when they make racist statements.
The way that the 5th Circuit Court continues to allow employers to get away with racism is by using the doctrine of “stray remarks”. Stray remarks is the doctrine that just a short racist statement does not show racism and is a meaningless “stray remark”. In the case of Eaglin v. Texas Children’s Hospital a 2020 case a supervisor’s statements that the employer wanted to replace the black plaintiffs with Hispanic employees were “stray remarks” and not direct evidence of discriminatory intent, because the supervisor did not supervise the plaintiffs at the time of the statements, and the supervisor did not identify the source of her belief about the employer’s intent. The 5th Cir. which is the most conservative and ant-employee Federal Circuit Court has been chastised by the Supreme Court before for using “stray remark” as a way to allow employers to make racist statements, but it seems that are back at it again. This opinion was not published which means that it is not an official case to be used in other cases. They often do this to make it less likely that they will face scrutiny from the US Supreme Court and they can still help out racist employers. El Paso is in the 5th Circuit so if your employment case gets removed or filed in Federal Court, you have will eventually have to face this courts absolute desire to dismiss your case and thwart your rights congress guaranteed you under Title VII of the Civil Right Act. Another sad day for the working men and women of El Paso and the rest of Texas.