Something rotten has taken root in government workplaces across this country. Programs draped in the soft language of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” were sold as tools for unity. In practice, they’ve become something far uglier – mandatory sessions where employees are sorted by skin color, shamed for their ancestry, and branded as bigots if they dare object. Most people endure it quietly. They have mortgages. They have families. They swallow the indignity and move on.

But what happens when a government employer weaponizes its own anti-discrimination apparatus against someone specifically because of his race? One city worker in the Pacific Northwest refused to stay silent – and a federal appeals court just gave him a fighting chance to prove what happened.

From The Post Millennial:

A white former Seattle employee says the city’s DEI program helped fuel years of racial harassment against him. On Monday, a Ninth Circuit panel of Democratic presidential appointees ruled that a jury could hear his claims, handing Seattle a significant defeat in its effort to end the case.

Joshua Diemert alleges that the hostility began in city racial justice trainings and followed him into daily interactions with supervisors and coworkers. Chief Judge Mary Murguia wrote that the alleged incidents, considered together, were serious enough for his hostile work environment claims to proceed.

What Diemert describes isn’t some vague grievance about workplace culture. It’s a grinding, years-long campaign of racial hostility – the kind that DEI’s loudest champions swear never happens.

When “inclusion” becomes exclusion

Diemert worked in Seattle’s Human Services Department processing applications for utility bill assistance. Not exactly a glamorous post. He showed up, did his job, and helped people pay their bills. According to the Ninth Circuit’s account of his allegations, that wasn’t enough for his supervisors.

A manager openly questioned what Diemert could “offer the department as a straight white man.” Coworkers slapped the white supremacist label on him after he pushed back on claims made during mandatory racial justice training. One supervisor allegedly got physical – accosted him, called him a “colonist,” and told him his race bore responsibility for every injustice in American history. Just a normal Tuesday in progressive Seattle, apparently.

It gets worse. When Diemert objected to a coworker denying an eligible white applicant utility assistance because of the applicant’s supposed “white privilege,” he was informed – with a straight face – that it’s impossible to be racist toward white people. A supervisor also pressured him to surrender a lead role so a person of color could be promoted into it.

This is what DEI looks like when the slogans come down from the wall and the cameras switch off.

Segregation repackaged as progress

The machinery behind this hostility was Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, launched in 2004 and cemented as permanent city policy in 2023. The program separated employees into racially segregated training sessions. White workers attended an “Internalized Racial Superiority” workshop. Employees of color went to an “Internalized Racial Oppression” session. Trainers reportedly told participants that racism lives in white people’s DNA.

Racial segregation in a government workplace. In the twenty-first century. Framed as enlightenment.

Laura D’Agostino of the Pacific Legal Foundation, representing Diemert, argued the program encouraged discrimination and harassment rather than treating employees as individuals. For anyone old enough to remember what the civil rights movement actually fought for, the betrayal here is staggering.

Even the Ninth Circuit drew a line

Here’s where this story turns genuinely remarkable. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has a well-earned reputation as the most liberal federal appellate bench in America. The three-judge panel hearing Diemert’s appeal – Chief Judge Murguia, Judge Fletcher, and Judge Koh – were appointed by Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Biden respectively. Not a single Republican appointee among them.

They reversed the lower court’s dismissal anyway. The panel ruled that Diemert’s allegations were sufficiently numerous, frequent, and severe for a jury to decide whether he endured a racially hostile workplace. Critically, they established that race-conscious training programs can violate federal civil rights law when they breed a hostile work environment. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice weighed in with an amicus brief backing Diemert’s claims – a clear signal that Washington views this conduct as unlawful discrimination.

The case returns to district court, where Seattle must now answer to a jury.

Joshua Diemert wasn’t a pundit or an activist. He was a civil servant who processed utility bills and expected basic dignity at work. Instead, his own employer turned him into a target – not despite its diversity program, but through it. Equal protection under the law doesn’t come with a racial asterisk. It took four years and a trip through the Ninth Circuit, but Diemert is finally going to get his day in court. Seattle should be nervous.

Key Takeaways

• A Seattle employee alleges years of racial harassment driven by the city’s mandatory DEI program.
• The Ninth Circuit – a panel of all Democratic appointees – reversed the case’s dismissal.
• The court established that DEI training programs can violate federal civil rights law.
• The Trump DOJ backed the plaintiff, signaling a broader federal crackdown on discriminatory DEI practices.

Sources: The Post Millennial