A federal judge has thrown out the lawsuit of a former corrections official offended by the state’s diversity, equity and inclusion training, and claimed it amounted to a hostile work environment.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang found the contents of Joshua F. Young’s complaint failed to show how a computer-based module and related race-conscious materials led to severe or pervasive harassment within the Colorado Department of Corrections.

“Without any factual allegations detailing how the CDOC’s trainings affected Mr. Young’s workplace or ‘created a culture of suspicion and distrust’ within the CDOC,” she wrote, “Plaintiff’s allegations are insufficient to plausibly allege that the trainings affected the workplace ‘so substantially as to make it intolerable’ for Plaintiff to continue his employment.”

Young has since appealed Wang’s dismissal order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

The lawsuit came amid an effort from conservative activists and elected officials to defund diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming and ban books with LGBTQ or racial themes from schools. Last month, the chief of staff to Texas’ Republican governor asserted DEI efforts “encourage discrimination in the workplace,” without elaboration or examples.

There has also been movement in the opposite direction, as the Colorado Supreme Court, for instance, recently mandated that attorneys complete DEI training as part of their continuing legal education.

Young, a white man from Colorado Springs, alleged he was forced to resign from his job as a sergeant in the corrections department after suffering “severe and pervasive” discrimination from a DEI training module.

Calling him a “rising star” in the department, Young’s lawyers described how the CDOC allegedly forced Young to absorb teachings hostile to white people as part of a workplace “experiment.”

“Defendants’ mandatory trainings paint a grim picture of the United States as a racist country permeated with discrimination, ridicule, and insult that trickle down to all aspects of American society,” wrote his attorneys.

The materials they contended the department made available to employees included:

? a glossary of terms such as “white fragility” and “BIPOC“

? a video about redlining, which is a historical form of housing discrimination

? recommended books about “anti-racism” and racial identity groups

“The fact that his non-white colleagues were viewing the same content, and absorbing the idea that he – as a white individual – was contributing toward racism and their oppression, was too much for him,” argued Young’s attorneys. “Mr. Young felt harassed and intimidated to the point that he no longer felt comfortable working for the Department of Corrections, and ultimately resigned.”

Young’s lawsuit claimed the corrections department was liable for violating federal civil rights law by creating a hostile work environment. He also alleged the state violated his constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

The government moved to dismiss Young’s lawsuit, arguing the allegedly offensive materials were merely offered to employees as additional resources and were not required as part of the DEI training. Further, Young had not pointed to any instance of hostility against white employees within the corrections department as a result of the computer module.

“This is not akin to a supervisor proclaiming frequently in the workplace that Caucasians are racist and weak oppressors, nor to an employee calling a coworker a racial slur as an insult,” wrote the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. “An employee’s subjective belief that others might think poorly of him is insufficient to show the kind of objective, severe or pervasive harassment that altered Plaintiff’s working condition.”

Wang agreed with the government that Young’s lawsuit lacked factual allegations of a racially-hostile work environment attributable to the training. She noted Young had alleged neither a “steady barrage” of inflammatory racial comments nor a single instance of an “unambiguously racial epithet” that could satisfy the legal standard.

As for Young’s assertion that the training materials treat people differently based on race in violation of equal protection under the law, Wang explained that Young, as an ex-employee, did not have standing to force his former employer to change its policies as part of his constitutional claim.

The case is Young v. Colorado Department of Corrections et al.