Jury awards $20 million verdict in race harassment case involving Ku Klux Klan-related threats at Stanford Cancer Center

The trial took place in the Alameda County civil courthouse in Oakland. – Photo: Kevin Epps by Lara Villarreal Hutner San Francisco – Stanford Health Care Patient Testing Technician Qiqiuia Young filed a 100-page lawsuit against Stanford University and Stanford Health Care alleging a series of acts of racial harassment and discrimination that began with her co-workers threatening to, and then dressing as the Ku Klux Klan at the Stanford Cancer Center and detailing multiple instances of the “n” word used in the workplace at Stanford Health Care. Ms. Young also alleged retaliation for her reports of race harassment, and for her association with Stanford University physicians who reported race harassment on her behalf, as well as whistleblower retaliation for Ms. Young’s voluminous reports of patient safety issues at Stanford Health Care. Ms. Young, whose grandparents were Civil Rights leaders in Oklahoma, where she was born, says, “I couldn’t turn a blind eye to what people were doing. I had to speak out. And when I did, they tried to silence me.” The day after Ms. Young filed her lawsuit, Stanford University Dean Lloyd Minor and Stanford Health Care CEO David Entwistle sent an email to over 22,000 people that,...