Firm to pay worker over offensive music

A San Jose semiconductor company has agreed to pay $168,000 to an African American worker who said he was fired after he complained about an employee’s racially offensive rap singing, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday.

Novellus Systems Inc., while admitting no wrongdoing, agreed to include a zero-tolerance statement in its anti-harassment policy and to amend the policy to include a reference to harassment through the playing of music. The policy will also include examples of offensive musical lyrics, the federal commission said.

Novellus, which makes and services equipment used in fabricating integrated circuits, will make the changes under a two-year consent decree signed Monday by U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court last year, the federal agency accused Novellus of allowing a Vietnamese American employee to play and rap aloud to music lyrics that included anti-black epithets.

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Firm to pay worker over offensive music
San Francisco Chronicle