‘Not all insulting comments are of equal gravity,’ tribunal finds
Comparing offensive remarks regarding a person’s weight or age to insults about someone’s skin colour is itself racist, a tribunal judge has ruled.
Employment Judge Lorna Findlay said that “not all insulting comments are of equal gravity”, adding that workers who draw such comparisons can be found to have committed race harassment under UK employment law.
The decision follows a case brought by Louise Williams-St Louis, a Black council youth worker who was called a “slave” by a difficult child.
When she raised a complaint regarding his behaviour, white colleagues attempted to downplay the abuse by noting that the young person had also called staff “fat or old”.
Ms Williams-St Louis is now in line for compensation after suing West Berkshire District Council for race harassment.
She had worked for the council as a Youth Turn-Around Intervention Worker in its Youth Justice Support Team (YJST) since July 2023.
In April 2024, she was tasked with supporting a boy, anonymised as Young Person X, who was frequently “rude and derogatory” to staff and had used “the N word” in the past.
On one occasion, he “smashed” his phone during a meeting with Ms Williams-St Louis due to frustration.
By June 2024, X continued to be uncooperative, vaping, playing on his phone and failing to respond to Ms Williams-St Louis during a session, the tribunal decision said.
He was “swearing and singing explicit lyrics about stabbings”, and continued even after Ms Williams-St Louis informed him that she had lost a family member to stabbing.
They went for a walk and discussed “racism and colonialism”, the tribunal heard.
However “X’s difficult behaviour continued”, and when they were back at the office he called a friend, Y, on loudspeaker.
On the phone call, X and Y spoke about Ms Williams-St Louis as “that battyboy Louise”, “the one you call a slave” and “a plus sized baddie”.
The youth worker became frustrated at the situation and said she “did not have time to argue with little boys” before going to get her things to drive X home.
The youth worker had a meeting with manager Stacey Clay about the incident, during which she was “was rocking backwards and forwards in her distress”.
The tribunal heard: “While she was explaining what had happened previously to Stacey Clay, [Ms Williams-St Louis] told Miss Clay about what she had said about not having time to waste on ‘little boys’ under the severe provocation of the racist abuse she experienced.
“Miss Clay took her to task about that, saying that she should not have used such an expression as it was \derogatory’ towards the young people.
“Miss Clay also likened the comments made by the young people to comments made to staff about being fat or old.”
Karen Norris, assistant team manager, “compared the racial abuse” to the child “calling other staff members old, fat or making comments about them having a speech impediment”.
The tribunal heard: “After speaking to colleagues and managers the previous day, she felt that although people were attempting to be supportive and offer her comfort, the continuous ‘it’s likened to’ examples where it was compared to someone being old, that or having a speech impediment was not the same.
“She makes the point that body shaming, ageism and speech impediments impact all types of people, but… ‘the historical barbaric violence linked to Colonialism, Imperialistic rule and slavery, due to white superiority and the belief that Black people were savages and beneath white people impacted Black people alone’.”
The child was assigned to a different worker but continued to harass Ms Williams-St Louis, the tribunal heard.
X was taken to youth court for his behaviour later in June 2024, but made a host of complaints against the council staff, including Ms Williams-St Louis.
She resigned on 21 June, later saying in a meeting that her managers could not empathise with her situation as a Black woman.
She lodged a grievance that the council did not take her “complaints or feelings of upset seriously”, but nothing came of it.
She won claims of race harassment and victimisation at Reading Employment Tribunal.
Employment Judge Lorna Findlay said that it is racism to compare racist comments to insults about fat or old people.
Judge Findlay said: “It was striking to us… that after making serious complaints, management did not take [Ms Williams-St Louis’s] complaints and upset seriously in respect of the racism directed towards her by a young person.”
Judge Findlay added: “It may be that Karen Norris was trying to liken race discrimination to abuse in relation to other protected characteristics, but we observe that if someone is fat or overweight that is not necessarily a protected characteristic unless it amounts to a disability under UK law.
“In any case, we consider that the purpose of Karen Norris’s comments was to try to calm the situation by suggesting to [Ms Williams-St Louis] that the abuse she had received was not terribly serious, by likening it to insulting comments about being fat or old.
“The problem with that type of comparison, even if comparisons are made to comments about protected characteristics, is that not all insulting comments are of equal gravity.
“By making those comparisons, Karen Norris was consciously or subconsciously attempting to diminish the seriousness of what had been said to [Ms Williams-St Louis] , which related directly to the subjugation of Black people by white people in the Caribbean in the past.
The judge added: “We consider that Miss Clay’s response to [Ms Williams-St Louis], in likening what had happened to her that day to staff being called old or fat by a young person and in particular by focusing on [Ms Williams-St Louis’s] use of the expression ‘little boys’ rather than what was said by X and Y to make her react in that way, showed a lack of empathy.”
Other allegations of direct race discrimination, harassment related to race and of victimisation were dismissed.