Villanova University has defeated a discrimination lawsuit from a fired non-Catholic Black employee who, among her allegations, cried racism when discussing a painting it commissioned depicting Saint Augustine as Black.
But none of the allegations in Jennifer Powell-Folks’ 2024 lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia federal court, rise to the level of discrimination, a hostile work environment or retaliation, judge Gerald McHugh wrote March 10.
“Plaintiff does not describe a deluge of harassment that could amount to an abusive work environment, even if I were to consider all six incidents,” McHugh wrote.
“Here, Plaintiff describes six instances over the span of a year and 10 months, a frequency resembling sporadic and isolated incidents of discomfort, rather than the steady stream of harassment required to establish pervasiveness.”
Powell-Forks scored a job with the Catholic university in January 2022 as director of finance and administration. She says her religion is African Methodist Episcopal.
She lasted 22 months at the school, then hired Olugbenga Abiona of Abiona Law to sue Villanova. Her allegations were these;
-She was shut out of work on collecting “Lenten season writings,” allegedly being told Villanova accepts them from folks who understand “the Villanova Lenten practice.”
-Assistant vice president Tia Noelle Pratt allegedly said it was “not in the school’s best interest” to promote a 2022 painting it commissioned with Saint Augustine, a North African and founder of the Villanova order, as a Black man.
Pratt was concerned advertising the painting could invite criticism of a shift in Villanova’s thinking, which previously depicted Saint Augustine as white. This was racist, Powell-Folks said, because she believes he was Black and not publicly declaring it so was in line with resisting the truth.
-Powell-Folks says she was criticized for not embracing the collective process and that coworkers questioned whether she was supposed to be at certain meetings.
In September 2023, she met with human resources to file a hostile work environment complaint. At a meeting a month later during which she thought her concerns would be address, she was instead fired, her suit says.
McHugh’s order granted Villanova’s motion to dismiss her complaint, writing the standard for a hostile work environment claim “is a daunting one.” Powell-Folks needed to show her job was filled with pervasive discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insults.
“Plaintiff believes that these episodes disparage her non-Catholic faith, and perhaps also her race, but she provides no additional evidence to support this inference drawn from facially neutral remarks,” McHugh wrote.
Simple “discourtesy or rudeness” is not enough to sustain a lawsuit like hers, McHugh said.
“Thus, a co-worker’s impressions about a painting or an off-hand comment about Plaintiff simply being a member of a different religion are, at best, innocent observations, or at worst, thoughtless remarks causing discomfort but ones that fall far short of the threshold of fundamentally altering one’s work environment,” he added.