Novellus settles racial harassment suit: WORKER FIRED AFTER COMPLAINING ABOUT RACE-TINGED MUSIC

Jun 25, 2008 (San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- NVLS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- San Jose-based Novellus Systems has agreed to pay $168,000 to a former employee who said he lost his job after he complained about a co-worker rapping to racially offensive music at work.

U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose signed a two-year consent decree Monday that includes monetary damages for Michael Cooke, an African-American employee who worked as an assembly technician at Novellus for more than 10 years before he was fired in 2004.

Novellus, a manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment, denied any wrongdoing. But as part of the settlement, the company agreed to include a zero-tolerance policy and amend the company's harassment policy to include the playing of offensive music.

Attorneys for Novellus declined to comment on the case Tuesday.

According to the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September, Cooke had to listen on a regular basis to a 27-year-old Vietnamese-American co-worker playing and rapping aloud to music lyrics that included anti-black racial epithets such as the "N-word."

Although Cooke complained several times to his superiors and made it clear that the language was offensive to him, the co-worker continued to use slang involving racial slurs and to sing along to these kinds of lyrics within Cooke's earshot.

"That kind of language pains me," Cooke said in a statement issued by the EEOC. "The N-word is not something I take lightly," he said.

The EEOC's lawsuit charged that delaying effective corrective action by more than half a year constituted unlawful harassment, and that Cooke was fired in retaliation for his earlier complaints.

Tuesday, Sanya P. Hill Maxion, an EEOC attorney who represented Cooke, said she commended Novellus "for negotiating a fair settlement in this case. "The company is willing to modify its anti-discrimination policies to exclude playing racially derogatory music in the workplace," she said. "They recognize the use of this music in the workplace is prohibited."

Contact Sonia Narang at snarang@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5073.

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