City of Markham places HR director on leave for saying N-word during guest lecture

This adds a lot of context to what was reported earlier in The Star.

I think this shows up how clueless HR departments are, how ill-equipped to assess issues of harassment.

And this was done in public and on camera. It's even more of a shitshow behind closed doors when - as is typical - a lower-ranking employee has a harassment claim against a higher-ranking one. It's so bad that most people never make a formal complaint, because not only will HR usually not do anything to deal with the harasser, they will find ways to get rid of the complainer.

And let's face facts - most HR employees are white women, and generally not the best and brightest because working in HR is not generally a goal but a fallback, and the job of HR is to serve the most powerful people in the organizations. The "Karen" stereotype strongly applies.