Roger Speid, who worked as a licensed nursing assistant, or LNA, at Rutland Regional Medical Center for more than five years, claims he was the target of racial jokes throughout his employment.
According to the complaint, which Speid’s attorney filed in civil court in Rutland this week, the harassment culminated in autumn 2015, when a noose was hung from the door of a conference room in Speid’s work area.
Speid’s attorney, Patrick Bernal, said Friday that the case “raises big issues.”
“Vermont is a state that prides itself on embracing diversity,” Bernal said.
Speid’s experience while working at Rutland Regional Medical Center runs counter to that belief, Bernal said.
“What happened here challenges those notions,” Bernal said. “It challenges the way we think of ourselves.”
Brian Kerns, vice president of human resources at Rutland Regional, said the medical center would not comment on the case.
“We are an equal-opportunity employer and we maintain strict policies prohibiting unlawful discrimination in the workplace,” Kerns said in an email statement. “We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, patients, contractors and volunteers without regard to race, gender, age or any other protected trait.”
Speid, a black man who was born in Jamaica, has lived in Vermont for more than a decade, according to Bernal. He began working at Rutland Regional Medical Center as an LNA in July 2010.
According to the complaint, Speid was well liked by staff members and patients, earning praise from supervisors. One supervisor wrote in a 2014 evaluation that he “is regarded as a role model.”
In a letter the same supervisor wrote supporting Speid’s application to nursing school, she said that his coworkers often comment on his positive attitude.
“He is dependable, hard-working, organized, honest, and courteous,” she wrote.
Bernal described Speid, a father of two, as a “well-mannered, gracious, warm person.”
But, according to the complaint, there were aspects of Speid’s work atmosphere that he was uncomfortable with. Coworkers, for example, joked that if Speid went hunting in the woods, he might be mistaken for a bear or a buck and shot.
The jokes began around the time Speid took the written test for getting his hunting license, according to Bernal.
Bernal said the taunts put Speid in “a bind.” If he became angry or asked his coworkers to stop, he risked being perceived as an angry black man. If he remained quiet, he believed the joking would continue.
“It’s not an easy choice, and it’s not one we feel he should have to make, especially in a professional setting,” Bernal said.
The attorney added that Speid eventually did not follow through with getting his hunting license in part because of the joke.
Speid’s coworkers also discussed Donald Trump in front of him. Bernal said that the discussion of the Republican presidential candidate’s policies, particularly when coworkers discussed his policies on “Muslims and Mexicans,” made Speid uncomfortable.
“The fact is that race is tied up in a lot of the discussions about Trump,” Bernal said.
The racial aggression in the workplace came to a head, Speid claims in his complaint, when a noose was hung from a door to a room in the area where Speid worked in September 2015.
The noose was hung from the back side of the door to a room where staff remotely monitored patient heart rates. However, though the noose faced the wall when the door was left open, the complaint states that Speid frequently needed to access the area behind the door for materials stored there.
According to the complaint, the rope remained there for about a month. Speid initially asked his supervisors and coworkers how it came to be displayed there, but nobody took responsibility.
On Oct. 13, 2015, Speid raised the issue with his new supervisor, Nurse Manager Jessica Ollis, asking her to investigate who put the noose on the door and to find out why they had. He told her he felt intimidated by it, but, according to the complaint, she never addressed it with Speid and she did not take it down.
Eventually, Speid’s coworker removed the noose from the door after the pair discussed it.
Meanwhile, Speid’s relationship with two colleagues, two white women who were recent college graduates and friends, began to deteriorate, according to the lawsuit.
At one point, one of the coworkers photographed Speid during a shift, kneeling down in the war room, and showed it to supervisors claiming he was sleeping on the job, according to the lawsuit. Speid claims he was feeling sick and knelt down for a momentary break. Meanwhile, Speid raised concerns with supervisors that the two women spent too much time on their smartphones while on the job.
Speid was on duty with the coworkers during the overnight shift beginning Nov. 5, 2015.
One of the women took a break around 3 a.m., and the other directed Speid to cover her work. Speid protested, saying the woman had been on her smartphone for much of her shift and that should have done the work to herself.
According to the complaint, there was a heated argument, but Speid eventually agreed to cover the woman’s work.
After the argument, each of the coworkers filed complaints about Speid with their supervisor, alleging that Speid threatened them, according to the suit. Speid denies the allegations.
Ollis took statements from both women, but did not take a statement from Speid, according to the complaint. She directed Speid to leave the hospital immediately, and, though he agreed to go, ordered security guards to escort him out.
The complaint states that Speid believes the security guards were sent to escort him out “based on the stereotypical belief that black men have a propensity for violence.”
“His feelings and pride were hurt, and Mr. Speid was stunned that his employer for over five years would treat him that way,” the complaint continues.
On Nov. 6, human resources notified Speid that he was being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the allegations that he behaved threateningly.
Weeks later, on Nov. 25, Speid received a letter from Rutland Regional Medical Center terminating him. The letter said that the investigation was “complete” but did not include the conclusion of the investigation, according to the complaint.
The complaint states that “the only specific misconduct” mentioned in the letter is an allegation that Speid didn’t tell the truth about whether one of his coworkers left the room during the night of Nov. 5.
When Speid applied for and was granted unemployment under the Vermont Department of Labor, the DOL’s determination concluded that Speid was “discharged by your employment unit but not for misconduct connected with your work when no evidence of misconduct has been presented.”
In the lawsuit, Speid makes allegations on four counts — hostile work environment, unlawful retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent supervision, training and retention.
Robert Appel, a Burlington attorney who formerly headed up the Vermont Human Rights Commission, found the details of the case troubling.
A noose, he said, is “an image of intimidation against African americans, particularly African American men.”
Appel also said that in his experience, cases of discrimination are not unusual in Vermont.
“We as white people need to not dismiss the experiences of our black and brown brothers and sisters,” Appel said.
“I hear stories like this all too frequently,” he said.
