Honeywell Firing Over DEI Training Lawful, Seventh Circuit Says

Honeywell International Inc. didn’t violate federal and state workplace anti-discrimination laws when it terminated a White engineer for defying requests from management to participate in a mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training, a federal appeals court ruled.

Three Trump-appointed judges at the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Wednesday found no evidence that Honeywell retaliated against the worker after he complained that the online-based unconscious bias awareness training—which it required workers to complete during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2021—contained discriminatory content.

Charles Vavra’s claim of having a reasonable belief that the training was an unlawful employment practice in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Illinois Human Rights Act fell short because he admitted to never watching the video to understand its content or application to make that showing, the panel said. His claim therefore is “meritless,” it said.

Vavra assumed that “the training would vilify white people and treat people differently based on their race. But that presumption is purely speculative and insufficient to make his belief objectively reasonable,” Judge Thomas Lee Kirsch wrote for the court.

“Moreover, the only reliable information Vavra had regarding the contents of the training contradicted his assumptions,” the court said.

Vavra’s supervisor, who took the training, told him it wasn’t racist “and that it featured a white victim of unconscious bias. A belief is not objectively reasonable if it requires rejecting such concrete information in favor of conjecture,” the opinion said.

During oral argument in May, the panel hinted that Vavra’s case was weak on evidence of bias.

The Seventh Circuit’s decision affirming a district judge’s summary judgment ruling that Vavra wasn’t illegally discriminated or retaliated against after he complained about the training in emails with management comes amid growing tensions over the legality of workplace DEI initiatives, including anti-bias training.

The case presented an opportunity for the appeals court to clarify when taking action against employees who object to such programs runs afoul of workplace anti-bias laws.

The dispute began in 2020 after Honeywell executives sent companywide emails expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Vavra, who worked in the company’s Safety and Productivity Solutions unit, objected to the communication and mandatory training announced that year, and he refused to complete the online training on the grounds that it was racist and discriminatory, according to court papers.

Prior to his termination, he sent an email to management accusing CEO John Waldron of engaging in “conscious” race-baiting by suggesting that all White workers are inherently racist.

Honeywell had urged the Seventh Circuit to dismiss the appeal because Vavra knew that failing to complete the training would result in his termination, and several of his colleagues had urged him to comply.

Judges Michael Yale Scudder Jr. and Amy St. Eve joined the decision.

The case is Vavra v. Honeywell Int’l Inc., 7th Cir., No. 23-02823, 7/10/24.