10th Circuit DEI holding remains faithful to established hostile work environment test

The Claim – Young v. Colorado Department of Corrections, No. 25-1068 (10th Cir. May 11, 2026)

Plaintiff Joshua Young is a white man who was formerly employed by the Colorado Department of Corrections. His Complaint against his employer alleged that he experienced hostile work environment and constructive discharge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act due to his employer’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) training program. Mr. Young claimed that his employer’s program made concerning generalizations about the role of white people in oppressing racial minorities. In conjunction with the training, there was a glossary of terms provided with general characterizations about white people in words such as “race”, “white exceptionalism”, and “white fragility.” Mr. Young claimed that department leaders were also advised to let less powerful people speak first and to treat employees differently based upon race. The training also included further video recommendations related to discriminatory housing and intersectionality. The Court had found variations of these same claims insufficient in Mr. Young’s prior appeals; so, in this most recent rendition of his complaint at issue on appeal, Mr. Young further alleged the following:

1. An ongoing commitment existed for this kind of training.
2. Employees had to endorse the race-based ideology reflected in the training.
3. Supervisors acted upon the training for disciplinary decisions.
4. The training compromised security.
5. The Department of Corrections failed to investigate his allegations.

But did any of it affect a term, condition, or privilege of his employment? This was the determinative question the Court asked in deciding if Mr. Young had demonstrated a claim that could survive dismissal. The answer was a resounding “no”.

The Law

Traditionally, federal courts across the country have evaluated hostile work environment claims by determining whether the alleged hostile conduct permeated the workplace 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.” Under the current administration, DEI programs have come under fire as potentially racially discriminatory, which has left employers and their attorneys facing uncertainty in traversing the Title VII minefield. The Court’s opinion in Mr. Young’s case, however, holds the line of established Title VII case law, providing encouragement for employers and their lawyers.

The Holding

The Tenth Circuit determined that Mr. Young’s burden was “extremely high” to allege facts that rendered his workplace “overtly hostile”. The Court held faithful to existing Title VII case law and determined that “To cross this threshold, the training and its aftermath had to create an abusive working environment by altering a term, condition, or privilege of Mr. Young’s job.” Specifically, Mr. Young’s allegations had to plausibly establish that the training to which he took offense affected his job responsibilities, interactions with fellow employees, or career advancement. Mr. Young failed to establish such an impact as the Court found that it was speculative that the training would be an ongoing obligation.

Likewise, his various concerns about security, discipline, and others’ perception of him as racist had not materialized with sufficient factual support outside of his own subjective concerns.  The Court also rejected his claim that his employer forced him to endorse the beliefs espoused in the training because the training expressly disclaimed that he needed to change his beliefs and encouraged employees to ask questions. Likewise, Mr. Young could not establish how his employer’s failure to investigate his concerns impacted him. Because his hostile work environment claim failed, his constructive discharge claim also could not stand.

Takeaways: How should employers navigate DEI training?

While not addressed directly by the Tenth Circuit, the additional test by which courts traditionally measure whether an alleged hostile work environment is sufficiently “severe or pervasive” to be actionable is whether the Plaintiff’s allegations are both subjectively and objectively reasonable. Essentially, courts look at whether the plaintiff actually and reasonably perceived the alleged events to be intimidating or hostile, and would the objectively reasonable person agree with them that the alleged events rendered the work environment permeated by hostility affecting their employment?

As the Young opinion suggests, DEI training that is not ongoing or coercive and which lacks an articulable tangible impact on an employee’s terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, is unlikely to result in a successful hostile environment claim. While employers and attorneys should always remain sensitive to case law differences in their own jurisdiction, the Tenth Circuit’s opinion provides a measure of confidence in relying on traditional tests to measure relative legal compliance of DEI training programs with Title VII. Employers should take advantage of this much needed clarity to perform a risk of assessment of their own planned DEI training.  In this endeavor, employers might consider the following 10-question checklist:

1. How often is the employer providing training on DEI topics to its employees?
2. Is the training mandatory?
3. Are the training materials sufficiently sensitive to avoid stereotyping groups of people?
4. Do employees know that they can ask questions, disagree, and challenge ideas?
5. How does the employer design a training environment open to discussion and debate that remains respectful, comfortable, and safe for employees?
6. Does the employer have a clear written policy regarding how and to whom employees can report concerns of harassment by other employees?
7. Does the employer train employees and managers regarding its anti-harassment policy and expectations?
8. In what ways might the DEI training program be inadvertently endorsing preferential treatment for certain groups of employees based on a protected characteristic?
9. What is the legitimate business purpose of the DEI goals the employer wishes to achieve?
10. How can the employer’s DEI goals be met without making protected class the determinative factor in hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, and other formal and informal privileges afforded to employees in the workplace?