White TV reporter fired for using the ‘n-word’ accuses station of racial discrimination

About time this happened:

"The question of whether it is acceptable for an African-American person to use the 'n' word in a workplace but not a white person is to be decided by a federal jury. U.S. District Judge Barclay Surrick has ruled that former Fox29 reporter-anchor Tom Burlington's claims against the station of double standards and racial discrimination will go to trial on January 18.

Burlington, who is white, was dismissed after using the 'n' word during a staff meeting in June 2007. He made the comment while discussing a story about about the symbolic burial of the word by the Philadelphia Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Burlington, who is now working as a real estate agent, was suspended within days and then fired after the incident was published in the Philadelphia Daily News.

He claims he 'was discriminated against because of his race', and states in his lawsuit that at least two African American employees at Fox29 had used the word in the workplace but had not been disciplined.

Judge Surrick, in denying Fox29's request to have the suit dismissed, said that federal courts had not determined whether a double standard, if true in this case, would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which deals with equal opportunity in employment.

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