Seattle, long a far-left city where advocates have promoted the racist “diversity, equity, inclusion” agenda, now will have to defend, in court, the stunning claim that racism is “in white people’s DNA.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revived the hostile work environment claims brought by Joshua Diemert against the city.
He formerly worked in the city’s Human Services Department and charged the city’s “Race and Social Justice Initiative” contributed to the racial abuse he suffered at work.
The claim had been thrown out by a trial court judge earlier, but now has been revived as the appeals court found enough evidence for the allegations to proceed.
A report at RedState said it was city trainers in a workshop who wildly claimed “racism was in white people’s DNA.”
The report explained Diemert’s job was to review applications for Seattle’s Utility Discount Program. He been at the job since 2013 and had satisfactory evalutions.
Then came the “racial training.”
The report charged: “Diemert described a November 2019 workshop where a trainer started talking about Columbus and cannibalism. The trainer’s supposed correction to the history lesson was that ‘all white people are cannibals.’ Others allegedly said white people were ‘like the devil’ and had racism in their DNA. After he spoke during the workshop, Diemert says coworkers called him a white supremacist.”
He later challenged a co-worker who rejected an eligible applicant, who is white, for utility assistance over “white privilege.”
What followed were attacks, scoldings, and worse, from his manager.
A supervisor later berated him because his keeping a leadership role prevented a person of color from being promoted, the report said.
A unanimous Ninth Circuit panel ruled a white Seattle city employee can take his hostile-work-environment lawsuit over the city’s DEI initiatives to trial — a decision legal experts say is a major wake-up call for government-run diversity programs nationwide.
Joshua Diemert, who… pic.twitter.com/wqlBaDAxjr
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) September 30, 2026
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Diemert v. City of Seattle granted a partial victory to Joshua Diemert. Joshua Diemert worked for the City of Seattle when the city rolled out its sweeping “Race and Social Justice Initiative” (RSJI).
In yesterday’s ruling, the… pic.twitter.com/UROFbMH3FB
— Mountain States Legal Foundation (@MSLF) September 29, 2026
Huge win for colorblind view of civil rights, in this Ninth Circuit opinion in Diemert v. City of Seattle. https://t.co/gvDhIkSujq
— EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas (@andrealucasEEOC) September 28, 2026
The appeals court said such “incidents” were “sufficiently numerous, frequent, and severe” to create a question about there being a “racially hostile work environment” and that, then, should be decided at trial.
Diemert resigned in September 2021 and filed his lawsuit in November 2022. He’s spent nearly four years trying to get these claims heard, the report said.
