[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
NOVEMBER 10, 2009
No. 08-11014
THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 06-00498 CV-W-E
LOUIE ALEXANDER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
OPELIKA CITY SCHOOLS,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
________________________
(November 10, 2009)
Before DUBINA, Chief Judge, BIRCH and SILER,* Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
*
Honorable Eugene E. Siler, Jr., United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by
designation.
Louis Alexander, an African-American male, appeals the district court’s
grant of summary judgment in favor of his former employer, Opelika City Schools
(“the Board”), in his hostile work environment claim brought pursuant to Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). Alexander argues that the district
court erred in granting the Board’s motion for summary judgment because he
suffered harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms and
conditions of his employment. Alexander alleges that the harassment consisted of
his supervisor and two coworkers referring to him as “boy,” and his supervisor
making a comment about a noose, during his two-year employment with the
Board.
We review “a grant of summary judgment de novo, using the same legal
standard as the district court.” Merritt v. Dillard Paper Co., 120 F.3d 1181, 1184
(11th Cir. 1997). Summary judgment is proper “‘if the pleadings, depositions,
answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with affidavits . . .
show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving
party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.’” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477
U.S. 317, 322, 106 S. Ct. 2548, 2552 (1986) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)). The
evidence and inferences drawn from facts must be viewed in the light most
favorable to the non-moving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith
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Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S. Ct. 1348, 1356 (1986). In order to defeat
summary judgment, however, the non-moving party “must do more than simply
show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts.” Id. at 586,
106 S. Ct. at 1356. The non-moving party must make a sufficient showing on each
essential element of the case for which he has the burden of proof. Celotex, 477
U.S. at 322, 106 S. Ct. at 2552.
Title VII provides that it is an unlawful employment practice for an
employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to
discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms,
conditions, or privileges of employment, because of” such individual’s race or
color. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). A harassment or hostile environment claim under
Title VII is established upon proof that “the workplace is permeated with
discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult, that is sufficiently severe or
pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive
working environment.” Miller v. Kenworth of Dothan, Inc., 277 F.3d 1269, 1275
(11th Cir. 2002) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted); see also Harris v.
Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21, 114 S. Ct. 367, 370 (1993) (holding that
Title VII is not implicated in the case where there is a mere utterance of an epithet
which is offensive to an employee).
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The employee has the burden of proving a hostile work environment claim.
Edwards v. Wallace Cmty. Coll., 49 F.3d 1517, 1521 (11th Cir. 1995). To
establish a hostile work environment claim, a plaintiff must show: (1) he belongs
to a protected group; (2) he has been subject to unwelcome harassment; (3) the
harassment was based on a protected characteristic, such as race; (4) the
harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms and conditions
of employment and create a discriminatorily abusive working environment; and
(5) the employer is responsible for such environment under either a theory of
vicarious or of direct liability. Miller, 277 F.3d at 1275. The requirement that the
harassment be “severe or pervasive” contains an objective and subjective
component. Id. at 1276. “Thus, to be actionable, this behavior must result in both
an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive and an
environment that the victim subjectively perceives to be abusive.” Id. (internal
citation and quotation marks omitted).
In evaluating the objective severity of the harassment, we look at the totality
of the circumstances and consider, inter alia: “(1) the frequency of the conduct;
(2) the severity of the conduct; (3) whether the conduct is physically threatening or
humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and (4) whether the conduct
unreasonably interferes with the employee’s job performance.” Id. Title VII is not
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a “general civility code.” Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788, 118
S. Ct. 2275, 2283 (1998). Teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents that
are not extremely serious will not amount to discriminatory changes in the terms
and conditions of employment. Mendoza v. Borden, Inc., 195 F.3d 1238, 1245
(11th Cir. 1999) (en banc). For example, we have stated that “racial slurs
allegedly spoken by coworkers had to be so ‘commonplace, overt and denigrating
that they created an atmosphere charged with racial hostility.’” Edwards, 49 F.3d
at 1521 (quoting EEOC v. Beverage Canners, Inc., 897 F.2d 1067, 1068 (11th Cir.
1990)).
In 2006, the Supreme Court held that the word “boy” may be probative of
discriminatory bias without the use of modifiers. Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 546
U.S. 454, 456, 126 S. Ct. 1195, 1197 (2006). Specifically, the Supreme Court
stated, in Ash, that “[a]lthough it is true the disputed word will not always be
evidence of racial animus, it does not follow the term, standing alone, is always
benign.” Id. A number of factors determine whether the word “boy” is evidence
of discriminatory animus, including the “context, inflection, tone of voice, local
custom, and historical usage.” Id.
To date, we have not directly applied this portion of the Ash holding in a
published opinion. In McCann v. Tillman, 526 F.3d 1370 (11th Cir. 2008), cert.
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denied, 129 S. Ct. 404 (U.S. Oct. 14, 2008), however, we found that a black
employee’s allegations that a white employee called her “girl” and two male black
employees “boys,” and that another coworker referred to a former black employee
as a “nigger bitch” did not amount to severe or pervasive harassment. Id. at 1378-
79. We stated that “[a]lthough offensive, such instances of racially derogatory
language alone, extending over a period of more than two years, [were] too
sporadic and isolated to establish that her employers’ conduct was so objectively
severe and pervasive as to alter the terms and conditions of her employment.” Id.
at 1379.
Upon review of the record and consideration of the parties’ briefs, we
discern no error. Even assuming Alexander established the first three elements of
a hostile work environment claim, upon consideration of the totality of the
circumstances, we conclude that the harassment was not sufficiently severe or
pervasive as to alter the terms and conditions of his employment. See Miller, 277
F.3d at 1275. First, there was not sufficient evidence presented for a reasonable
person to conclude that the harassment was frequent. See id. Alexander testified
that he was called “boy” constantly, but could only recall eight specific instances
over the course of two years where he was called “boy.” Second, in examining the
severity of the alleged conduct, the most severe comment was made by his
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supervisor about how to tie a noose around a person’s neck. This comment,
however, was not directed toward Alexander, and Alexander testified that he did
not know whether this comment referred to black people. Further, none of the
alleged racial comments contained threats of physical violence, and he did not
demonstrate that the comments interfered with his job performance. See Edwards,
49 F.3d at 1521. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary
judgment in favor of the Board.
AFFIRMED.
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