“I’m giving you a chance; just one chance. I’m going to be watching you, boy.”
That’s the ominous way Ethan Mullins, a 23-year-old Black man, says his new boss, a white man in his 30s, spoke to him just after he was hired as a maintenance worker at a skilled nursing facility for seniors in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in November of 2023.
The threatening comment allegedly made by Dustin Carpenter, the director of maintenance, was overheard by Melissa McKinley, then the human resources director at Worthington HealthCare, a facility owned by CommuniCare health network.
In an affidavit, McKinley, who is biracial, says she found the remark by Carpenter “inappropriate and unacceptable” and the use of the term ‘boy’ “racially offensive.” She immediately reported the incident to Worthington HealthCare Executive Director Alvin Lawson, who was responsible for employee discipline.
Lawson took no action in response to her report, she says.
In the weeks and months to come, Carpenter frequently referred to Mullins as “boy,” screamed at and belittled him in front of other employees, treatment he did not subject white employees to under his supervision, according to a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by Mullins on Jan. 31 in Wood County Circuit Court in West Virginia.
Carpenter also used the term “ni—er” on multiple occasions, as did another Worthington employee, Mullins claims.
Carpenter also allegedly said in front of other employees that he would be watching Mullins and that he (Carpenter) was a “slave driver.”
McKinley says these racist and racially charged statements were reported to her by Mullins and other witnesses and that she continued to report Carpenter’s harassing conduct toward Mullins up the chain both verbally and via email to Lawson and other Worthington/CommuniCare corporate representatives, including regional human resources executive Eric Booth and division vice president of human resources, Erika Goff.
Lawson still took no remedial action, and Carpenter’s harassment and disparate treatment of Mullins continued unabated, the complaint says.
Carpenter once threatened Mullins by telling him if he did not strictly follow his instructions, Carpenter would ensure that Mullins “could never work in the health care field again,” the lawsuit claims.
On another occasion, Carpenter allegedly told Mullins, “I don’t understand why you guys call each other ‘ni—ers’ and wear expensive shoes.” This statement was overheard by Carmen Izzi, another facility employee, who reported it to McKinley in HR, according to McKinley’s affidavit.
This incident did provoke a response from Lawson, who met with Mullins, McKinley and Carpenter to discuss it, then verbally reprimanded Carpenter for his conduct during the meeting, McKinley says.
But when Worthington employee Patricia Sprouse reported that she heard a white employee, Cassandra Crawford, say about Worthington HealthCare, “I am not their ni—er,” a statement the HR director reported to Lawson and CommuniCare corporate officials, no action was taken, McKinley claims.
Mullins resigned in February 2024. In his resignation letter, he cited the hostile work environment based on his race he had experienced at Worthington, the complaint says.
After Mullins resigned, McKinley “felt compelled to report Carpenter’s specific use of the N-word” to CommuniCare’s regional human resources executives, his attorney Sean Cook told Atlanta Black Star.
This resulted in another meeting that included Carpenter, Lawson and McKinley, during which Lawson was again “verbally warned about his conduct” by Booth, Cook says. But neither verbal reprimand he received ended up in Carpenter’s employee file, a breach of company policy, according to McKinley.
In her written affidavit, signed on Sept. 26, 2024, McKinley says throughout her tenure, she reported many examples of racial discrimination and racial hostility to the facility administrator Lawson and CommuniCare officials and expressed that the racially hostile environment at Worthington was “making it difficult to retain racial minorities as employees.”
To make her case, she says she provided employment information and statistics demonstrating this concern and alleges that regional HR executive Eric Booth “agreed that this was a problem.” However, she says that no action was taken as a result.
Asked about this employment information, Cook told Atlanta Black Star that McKinley, who resigned a month after Mullins, now recollects that during her tenure at Worthington HealthCare, between 100 and 120 people were employed at the facility, six of whom were minorities.
And during her time there, four of the six minority employees left: one was terminated, and three (including McKinley and Mullins) resigned “due in large part to the racially hostile environment,” he said, adding that he will be pursuing more precise employment data during the discovery phase of the case.
The lawsuit claims that Worthington HealthCare violated West Virginia human rights law by racially discriminating against Mullins, treating him differently than white employees, creating and maintaining a hostile and intolerable work environment, and retaliating against him when he complained about race-based harassment and disparate treatment. All of this forced him to resign, a constructive discharge that has cost him lost wages and emotional distress.
Mullins seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages and to cover his legal costs.
“The conduct of Ethan’s supervisor towards him was repugnant,” Cook told Atlanta Black Star. “However, equally offensive was the absolute failure of Worthington Healthcare Center and its high-ranking corporate officials to address in any manner the multiple instances of obvious racist conduct that were occurring, despite their being specifically reported to them by Worthington Human Resources Director Melissa McKinley.”
“Defendant Worthington not only failed to satisfy its legal obligation but also violated basic principles of human decency,” he said.
Citing the ongoing litigation and “out of consideration for the integrity of the case,” a spokesperson for CommuniCare declined a request for comment by Atlanta Black Star on the allegations in the lawsuit.
The answer to Mullins’ complaint by Worthington HealthCare is due to be filed by March 6.
