BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — A federal judge in Michigan has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Bloomington woman who claimed she was racially harassed while working at State Farm.
Chief U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou, who sits in the Western District of Michigan, said Dr. Carla Campbell-Jackson’s claim that she was retaliated against for making such claims is not supported.
Accordingly, construing the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, her retaliation claim fails for lack of evidence. She has not provided evidence to support a plausible inference that there was a causal connection between her protected conduct and her termination,” the judge wrote in a 23-page opinion entered last week.
Campbell-Jackson, first vice president of the Bloomington-Normal NAACP, said in her 2021 lawsuit that racism was an issue the entire time she worked at State Farm at offices in both Bloomington and at State Farm’s Portage, Mich. office which is near Kalamazoo.
In 2021, she filed a federal lawsuit alleging she faced a racially hostile work environment at State Farm, and that the company retaliated against her for complaining about racism and harassment, according to federal court records.
After the decision, the Illinois State Conference of the NAACP issued a statement on Wednesday stating their displeasure with the ruling and vowed to hold the insurance giant accountable.
“We are confident the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will decide that Dr. Campbell-Jackson’s claims of racism, discrimination, and harassment, which notably the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) determined amounted to harassment against a class of at least 10 Black/African American and Muslim State Farm employees, will be decided by a jury of her peers,” the statement.
Jarbou’s opinion granted a motion for summary judgement by State Farm. Such a motion is a common occurrence in civil cases and usually involves one side telling the judge that there are not facts in dispute or that no jury could possibly rule against them.
