STANFORD, Calif. — A Stanford Health Care employee has been awarded $10 million in damages in a racial harassment case.
A judge ordered Stanford University and Stanford Health Care to pay Qiqiuia Young, a Black patient testing technician, after she sued the healthcare provider for fostering a racial working environment, CBS reports.
Young’s lawsuit, filed in 2017, alleges that coworkers at Stanford Cancer Center used the N-word and mistreated Black patients. One image included in the 100-page lawsuit depicts another employee dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan in a patient examination room around Halloween.
The day after Young filed the suit, Stanford Dean Lloyd Minor and Stanford Health Care CEO David Entwistle sent an email to 22,000 people implying that Young had been dishonest in her reports of racism and misconduct, according to a press release issued by her attorneys Wednesday. In March, after a seven-week trial, an Alameda County Superior Court jury found that the email had defamed Young. The jury also determined she had been subjected to racial harassment, discrimination, and whistleblower retaliation.
“I couldn’t turn a blind eye to what people were doing,” said Young. “I had to speak out. And when I did, they tried to silence me.”
The jury originally awarded Young $20 million in damages but Alameda County Superior Court Judge Karin Schwartz reduced the award to $10 million on June 13 after Stanford University and Stanford Health Care petitioned the trial court, according to PR Newswire.
“My client is a hero,” said Lara Villarreal Hutner, Young’s attorney. “She’s a current employee at Stanford Health Care who’s had the courage to shine a light on the racism and patient safety issues she’s alleged and reported and to stand up against oppression for daring to speak truth to power. Ms. Young is grateful to all the Stanford faculty who have supported her and to the hardworking jurors who saw the truth. It’s been a nearly decade-long battle of David versus Goliath. And she’s won.”
