Any form of workplace discrimination can make employees feel small and isolated, reducing once gregarious individuals to somber and taciturn workers. That is one reason why federal and New Jersey laws prohibit that sort of conduct.

But one worker at a steel factory unfortunately lost his happy personality after being the victim of repeated racial discrimination. During the trial against the man’s former employer, ArcelorMittal, witnesses testified that he became more reserved in response to racial slurs and epithets from his co-workers. His lawyer described his treatment as the “breakdown of a man.”

The workplace discrimination case came to a conclusion this week when a jury reached a verdict in favor of the man and awarded him $25 million in damages. Evidence presented at the trial showed that fellow employees created a hostile work environment when they called the man, who is African-American, “boy.” They also wrote “King Kong” and “KKK” on the plant’s walls and, in an act surprising in its extreme offensiveness, left a toy monkey hanging from a noose on the man’s car mirror.

Executives for ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, were also found liable in the suit. They argued that they took proper measures to address the man’s complaints of his co-workers’ behavior. According to the executives, they suspended some of the offending workers, placed security cameras around the plant and hired an investigator.

Even so, at trial ArcelorMittal attempted to dismiss much of the offensive conduct as merely the sort of coarse teasing that goes on in blue collar environments. Lawyers for ArcelorMittal did not reveal whether they would appeal the verdict.

Source: The Buffalo News, “$25 million awarded steelworker in racial suit,” Phil Fairbanks, June 12, 2012.