Case Explained: DON GORDON; TERRELL JONES v. SERGEANT WILLIAM C. HEATH and MARYLAND STATE POLICE; CORPORAL JASON OROS

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-06-24 The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to Sergeant William C. Heath in an interlocutory appeal regarding a § 1981 hostile work environment claim brought by two Black Maryland State Police officers. The court held that the plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint plausibly alleged that Sergeant Heath participated in and tacitly authorized a racially hostile work environment through his own conduct, satisfying the requirements for personal liability under § 1983. The court applied the two-step qualified immunity inquiry: first determining if the facts alleged make out a violation of a constitutional right, and second, whether that right was clearly established at the time of the misconduct. In analyzing the merits, the court utilized the *Strothers v. City of Laurel* framework, requiring plaintiffs to plausibly allege unwelcome harassment based on race that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter employment conditions. The court found that the allegations—specifically the systematic exclusion of the plaintiffs from informal meetings and text chains where overtime and desirable assignments were distributed, combined with a supervisor’s circulation of a racially coded and sexually explicit image of George Floyd in the wake of his killing—satisfied these elements. Regarding personal liability, the court rejected the argument that § 1983 requires direct participation for every act, ruling instead that a supervisor’s “indifference or tacit authorization” of a subordinate’s misconduct, when viewed in context with ongoing exclusionary practices, can establish the necessary causal link and discriminatory intent. On the “clearly established law” prong, the court determined that existing Fourth Circuit precedent placed the unlawfulness of such conduct beyond debate. Citing *Campbell v. Galloway*, *Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp.*, and *Strothers*, the court reasoned that a reasonable law enforcement supervisor would have understood that excluding minority officers from career-advancing communications, tolerating overtly racial harassment by subordinates, and failing to intervene in the wake of a nationally significant racial justice event violated clearly established rights. Consequently, Sergeant Heath is not entitled to qualified immunity at this pleading stage, and the case may proceed to discovery and trial on the merits of the hostile work environment claim. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.