Shutterstock Can’t Dislodge Blackface-Tied Racial Hostility Suit

Shutterstock Inc. must face an ex-employee’s suit accusing the photo company and some of its executives of racial bias, including the maintenance of historic blackface photos in its content library.

A federal court judge in New York on Monday denied in part Shutterstock’s motion to dismiss the suit filed against it by Phillip Thompson, a Black man who had been a mid-level manager there.

Thompson had sued the company for race-based discrimination and retaliation under federal, New York City and state civil rights laws. The claims arose from how he’d allegedly been treated there, the treatment of his Black coworkers, ...