A gun on campus and racist slurs on shift - all ignored, an ex-officer's lawsuit claims
A former DePaul University officer says he quit after racist threats, a coworker's gun at work, and an HR team that wouldn't act.
The officer, who is African American, worked as a public safety officer at the private Chicago university from July 2022 until December 2025. In a complaint filed July 20 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, he alleges race discrimination, a racially hostile work environment, and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Section 1981. He says he was constructively discharged - pushed to resign because the workplace had become intolerable.
The problems began around February 2025, according to the filing, when the officer says the university enforced workplace rules more strictly against African American and Hispanic officers. He alleges he was held to tougher standards than his peers and that officers were allowed to taunt people of color. He says he complained several times, but nothing changed.
The complaint describes an incident in August 2025. After he complained to HR about his manager, the officer alleges he was singled out over a shift report - made to clock back in and work overtime to finish it, while white colleagues were routinely allowed to wrap up reports the next day. HR, the filing states, told him there was no evidence of retaliation or a hostile work environment.
The complaint also centers on a coworker who, the filing alleges, repeatedly made threatening and racially offensive comments. According to the complaint, the coworker said he wanted "race wars" to begin and made further racist remarks about Black people and public benefits. The filing further alleges the same coworker brought a firearm to work despite a policy banning weapons, leaving the officer afraid for his safety. He says he reported the coworker to HR in late November 2025 and heard nothing back. Weeks later, the complaint states, another officer filed an anonymous complaint about the same person.
After he raised concerns, the officer alleges, the university retaliated by writing him up for turning down an overtime shift that, he says, was never mandatory. The write-up was later dismissed, according to the complaint. He resigned on December 14, 2025.
For HR leaders, the allegations read less as a courtroom story than as a checklist of what can go wrong in complaint handling. The filing describes an employee who says he escalated concerns repeatedly over many months - and a response that, as he tells it, closed the file rather than investigated it. It also raises a workplace-safety question that HR functions increasingly own, with the complaint alleging a weapon was brought on-site against policy amid concerns that went unaddressed. Whatever the facts turn out to be, the case is a reminder that how a complaint is received, documented, and followed up can matter as much as the underlying conduct.
The former officer is seeking back pay, front pay, lost benefits, and compensatory and punitive damages, along with attorneys' fees. He has demanded a jury trial.
None of the allegations in the complaint have been tested in court, and no judge has ruled on any of the claims.
