PUBLISH
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ JOSHUA F. YOUNG, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. COLORADO DEPA RTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; DEAN WILLIAMS; JILL HUNSAKER RYAN, Defendants - Appellees. No. 23-1063

________________ _________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado (D.C. No. 1:22-CV-00145-NYW-KLM)

________________ _________________ William E. Trachman (Erin M. Erhardt and Davi d C. McDonald, with him on the briefs), Mountain States Legal Foundation, Lakewo od, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellant. Pawan Nelson, Colorado Depart ment of Law, Denver, Colo rado (Philip J. Weiser, Colorado Attorney Gene ral, Leslie C. Schultze, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Kerry Ferrell, Assistant Attorn ey General, filed the brie f) for Defendants-Appellees.

________________ _________________ Before TYMKOVICH , MATHESON , and CARSON , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ TYMKOVICH , Circuit Judge.

________________ _________________ While Joshua Young was an employ ee for the Colorado Department of Corrections, he alleges that the Depa rtment implemented mandatory Equity, FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### March 11, 2024 Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 12 Diversity, and Inclusion traini ng that subjected him to a hos tile work environment. After resigning from the Department becaus e of the training program, Mr. Young sued, asserting claims under Title VII a nd the Equal Protection Clause. In his complaint, he alleged thatthe training program violat ed Title VII by creating a hostile work environment and violated th e Equal Protection Cl ause by promoting race-based policies. In particular, he al leged the training demeaned him because of his race and promoted divisi ve racial and political theo ries that would harm his interaction with other correc tions’ personnel and inmates. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the district court dismisse d both claims without prejudice. Title VII was enacted to combat workplace discrimina tion. Along with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, it broadly pr ohibits employers from using racial criteria in hiring, firing, and promo tion decisions. Both also prohibit employers from allowing work conditions to be permeated with hostile racial or sexual animus. To the extent diversity programs generate such animus, they are equally subject to the prohibitions of Title VII and the Fourteen th Amendment. Although Mr. Young’s complaint high lights various materials from the Department’s Equity, Diversity, and Incl usion training that he found strongly objectionable, our case law re quires more. The training materials and any resulting department policies must be so severe or pervasive as to both objectively and subjectively alter the terms of employment for its employees and create an abusive working environment. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 23 Mr. Young’s allegations in the complaint do not meet this threshold. To be sure, Mr. Young’s objections to the contents of the EDI training are not unreasonable: the racial subj ect matter and ideological me ssaging in the training is troubling on many levels. As other cour ts have recognized, race-based training programs can create hostile workplaces wh en official policy is combined with ongoing stereotyping and explicit or im plicit expectations of discriminatory treatment. The rhetoric of these programs sets the stag e for actionable misconduct by organizations that employ them. But Mr. Young does not allege that th e training occurred more than once—let alone an ongoing presence permeating the wo rkplace. Nor does he allege any racebased harassing conduct, ridicule, or in sult from either his co-workers or his supervisors within his workpl ace that occurred as a result of the training. Although he alleges the explicitly race -based implications of th e training could eventually compromise employment opportunities, wo rkplace cohesion, and prison security, those allegations are too speculative at this time to meet what our case law requires. 

### I. Background A. Factual History 1 Mr. Young worked for the Colorado Depa rtment of Corrections at its Limon Correctional Facility starting in 2017. Mr. Young’s supe rior performance resulted in his promotion to Housing Sergeant in 2019 and Visiting Sergeant in 2020.

1 These facts are taken from Mr. Young’s amended complaint. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 34 Mr. Young alleges that the “Depar tment of Corrections implemented mandatory trainings that made sweepi ng negative generalizations regarding individuals who are white, and other gross generalizations about members of other racial demographics.” A.C. ¶ 4. He claims the trainings “paint[ed] a grim picture of the United States as a racist countr y permeated with discrimination.” Id. ¶ 21. Mr. Young alleges that “[t]hese tr ainings forced [him] to hear and absorb statements that were facially based on race.” Id. ¶ 7. Mr. Young cons idered these “sweeping generalizations about white i ndividuals . . . not merely bo orish, juvenile, or annoying comments,” but indicative of a workplace “permeated w ith [race-based] discrimination, ridicule, and insult.” Id. Mr. Young does not describe the format of the mandatory training in his amended complaint, but the briefing on ap peal clarifies that the EDI training consisted of several online modules that Department of Corrections employees completed on their own computers. Mr. You ng alleges that the tr aining materials for the Department of Corrections were provi ded by the Colorado Depa rtment of Public Health & Environment under the auspices of its Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion training. In the amended complaint, Mr. Young alleges that the “training materials were based upon a glossary of terms stating that all whites are racist, th at white individuals created the concept of race in order to ju stify the oppression of people of color, and that ‘whiteness’ and ‘white supremacy’ aff ect all ‘people of color within a U.S.
context.’” Id. ¶ 22. Mr. Young maintains that th e “glossary also states that white Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 45 individuals are triggered by feelings of guilt and fearwhen confronted with ‘information about racial inequality and in justice,’” a “pheno menon” labeled as “white fragility” in the glossary. Id. ¶ 23. The glossary bear s the imprimatur of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

App., Vol. I, 27. Mr. Young included other defined te rms from the glossary, among the following: BIPOC: Acronym for Black, In digenous People, and People of Color; the term is used to acknowledge that Indigenous and Black people have been most impacted by whiteness, both historically and in the present day. This shapes the experiences of and relationship to white s upremacy for all people of color within a U.S. context. White Fragility: Discomfort and defensiveness, often triggered by feelings of fear or guilt, on the part of a white person when confronted by information about ra cial inequality and injustice. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 56 Race: A social construct that artificially groups people by skin tone and other physical traits . The concept, which has no genetic or scientific basis, was cr eated and used to justify social and economic oppression of peop le of color by white people. White Exceptionalism: The belie f held by some white allies that they are excepti on to white racism eventhough they fail to address the implicit ways in which they perpetuate white supremacy. These individuals ar e often more interested in not seeming racist than actually im proving the lives of people of color. This is sometimes refe rred to as fakequity. A.C. ¶ 24 (cleaned up). He alleges these ma terials, as a whole, imputed that “Mr. Young promotes racist principl es merely by dint of the colo r of his skin.” A.C. ¶ 26. Mr. Young also alleges th at the training “included a section on ‘Other Tools & Resources’ that employees were to watch and read.” A.C. ¶ 29 (citing App., Vol. I, 42). Mr. Young alleges he felt pressure to review these materials, and that he reviewed many of them as a result. Id. The “Other Tools & Resources” section provided links to additiona l EDI videos and a list of books about race and marginalized identities. One of these videos was Redlined, A Legacy of Housing Discrimination , described in the section as “a video that explains Redlining more in-depth.” Id. Mr. Young alleges Redlined features an interviewee usi ng the N-word, “placing it in the voice of all individuals othe r than African-Americans.” Id. ¶ 31. Mr. Young describes the same video as accusing “all white individuals of misunderstanding that whatever success they had was a result of th eir own merit, as opposed to the simple product of past forms of race discrimination.” Id. ¶ 32. In the same vein, the video “describes white individua ls as having a misplace d sense of success.” Id. ¶ 33. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 67 In the video Intersectionality 101 , another video linked in the “Other Tools & Resources” section, Mr. Young asserts that “animated Clay mation figures are used to describe how racial identities are distinct, and force individuals to have different experiences as they go through life.” Id. ¶ 38. In a screenshot of the video Mr. Young attached to the compla int, a “white woman named Greta is contrasted with two other individuals—Jerry and Fatima—as the video literally separates them by a physical divider, and states ‘Greta, on th e other hand, can ignore intersectionality if she wants to—another form of privilege.” Id.

App., Vol. I, 68. Mr. Young characterizes two of the recommended books— White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism , by Robin DiAngelo; and How to be an Antiracist , by Ibram X. Kendi—as “entr ench[ing] invidious racial stereotypes.” Id. ¶ 36. Mr. Young claims thes e books “contain outright support for forms of invidious race discrimination mas querading as ‘anti-raci st’ literature.” Id. ¶ 35. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 78 Mr. Young also alleges that the Office of Health Eq uity included an “Equity Continuum” document as part of the EDI training materials. Id. ¶ 39. Mr. Young characterizes this document and the othe r training material as advocating for “treating people differently on the basis of ra ce, in contravention of state and federal law.” Id.

App., Vol. I, 69. Mr. Young states that “[t] hese are just a fe w of the multitude of examples of the racially discriminatory and abusive teachings that [h e] and all employees at the Colorado Department of Corrections have been subjected to.” Id. ¶ 45. Mr. Young claims that the Department’s “trainings crea ted a culture of suspic ion and distrust in the [Department].” Id. ¶ 46. He alleges that his “own experiences [were] severe and pervasive” and claims that “his knowledge that his coll eagues were being instructed in the same manner with the same tr ainings exacerbated the hostile [work] Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 89 environment.” Id. Additionally, he alleges that he felt “harassed and intimidated to the point that he no longer felt comfor table working for the [Department].” Id. ¶ 55. Mr. Young complained through the De partment’s formal complaint process but was informed that his complaint would not be investigated because it “did not establish reasonable cause to indicat e the presence of discrimination [or] discriminatory harassment.” A.C. ¶ 49. Mr. Young states that his employer’s refusal to investigate or remedy the situation led him to resign from his employment with the Department of Corrections a s hort time after the training.
B. Procedural History Mr. Young sued the Department of Corre ctions and the Executive Directors of both the Department of Correct ions and the Colorado Depart ment of Public Health & Environment. He subseque ntly amended his complaint, alleging two claims for relief: (1) a hostile work environment clai m under Title VII against the Department of Corrections; and (2) an equal protecti on claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Executive Directors. Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The district court dismissed the Title VII cl aim as failing to state a claim because Mr. Young failed to sufficiently plead the allege d harassment was severe or pervasive. The court dismissed the equal protection claim for lack of standing because Mr. Young was no longer em ployed by the Department of Co rrections, and thus could not challenge any state policy orpractice related to prosp ective relief. The court Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 910 dismissed both claims withoutprejudice and, citing Mr. Young’s failure to request leave to amend, did not sua sponte gran t Mr. Young leave to amend his claims. 

### II. Analysis Mr. Young challenges three of the distri ct court’s decisions: (1) dismissal of his hostile work environment claim; (2) dism issal of his equal pr otection claim; and (3) the district court’s failure to sua spont e grant leave to amend. We address each argument in turn. We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. See Herrera v. City of Espanola , 32 F.4th 980, 991 (10th Cir. 2022). We “accept a complaint’s well -pleaded allegations as tr ue, viewing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, and liberally construe the pleadings.” Lucas v. Turn Key Health Clinics, LLC , 58 F.4th 1127, 1136 ( 10th Cir. 2023). To survive a motion to dismiss fo r failure to state a claim, the complaint must “allege sufficient facts to stat e a claim for relief pl ausible on its face.” Id. (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 67 8 (2009)). We similarly review de novo a dismissal for lack of Article III standing. Safe Streets All. v. Hickenlooper , 859 F.3d 865, 87 7 (10th Cir. 2017). And we review denials of leave to amend a complaint under the abuse- of-discretion standard. SCO Grp., Inc. v. Int’l Bus. Machines Corp. , 879 F.3d 1062, 1085 (10th Cir. 2018). Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1011 A. Hostile work environment claim 1. Legal Standards Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 196 4 prohibits “discriminat[ion] against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, c onditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). “Alt hough Title VII does not explicitly mention hostile work environment, a victim of a racially hostile wo rk environment may nevertheless bring a cause of action under Title VII.” Tademy v. Union Pac. Corp. , 614 F.3d 1132, 1138 (10t h Cir. 2008) (quoting Ford v. West , 222 F.3d 767, 775 (10th Cir. 2000)). So, in addition to prohibiting di screte acts of discrimination, Title VII also protects employees from raci ally hostile work environments. See id

. To state a racially hostile work environment claim under Title VII, a plaintiff must allege: (1) membership in a protected class; (2) he was subjected to unwelcome harassment; (3) the harassment was due to r ace; and (4) the harassment was so severe or pervasive that it altered a term, cond ition, or privilege of his employment and created an abusive environment. See Lounds v. Lincare, Inc. , 812 F.3d 1208, 1222 (10th Cir. 2015). Under these requirements, Title VII is violated when a workplace is “permeated with ‘discrimin atory intimidation, ridicu le, and insult,’ that is ‘sufficiently severe or perv asive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive wo rking environment.’” Harris v. Fork lift Sys., Inc. , 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993) (quoting Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson , 477 U.S. 57, 65, 67 Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1112 (1986)). “In determining whether [a plaint iff] [has] made the re quisite showing, we must consider a variety of factors, including, ‘[1] the fre quency of the discriminatory conduct; [2] its severity; [3] whether it is physically thr eatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and [4] whet her it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance.’” Sprague v. Thorn Ams., Inc. , 129 F.3d 1355, 1365 (10th Cir. 1997) (quoting Harris , 510 U.S. at 23) (bracketed numerals added). For harassment to be sufficiently seve re or pervasive to alter the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, the complained-of conduct must be both objectively and subjectively offensive. Id. ; Harris , 510 U.S. at 21. “[I]t is not enough that a particular plaintiff deems the work environment hostile; it must also be of the character that it would be deemed hostile by a reasonabl e employee under the same or similar circumstances.” Lounds , 812 F.3d at 1222. In the context of a hostile work e nvironment claim, a single event, if extraordinarily severe, can alter the c onditions of a working environment. See, e.g., Tademy , 614 F.3d at 1144 (single noose incident raised issue as to racial animus); Turnbull v. Top eka State Hosp. , 255 F.3d 1238, 1243– 44 (10th Cir. 2001) (concluding plaintiff presented sufficien t evidence to support a hostile work environment claim based on singl e incident where an inmate “knocked [the plaintiff] to the ground, undressed her and digitally penetrated her, bit and choked her, and repeatedly threaten ed to kill her”). “The phrase ‘terms, conditions, or privile ges of employment’” is interpreted to reflect a “congressional intent ‘to strike at the entire sp ectrum of disparate treatment Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1213 of men and women’ in employment[.]” Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan , 536 U.S. 101, 115–16 (2002) (quoting Harris , 510 U.S. at 21). Conduct that alters ‘terms, conditions, or privileges of empl oyment’ is not necessarily limited to instances of economic or tangible discrimina tion; it also “includes requiring people to work in a discriminatorily hos tile or abusive environment.” Id

. With these legal principles in mind, we turn to Mr. Young’s allegations.
2. Mr. Young’s Hostile work environment claim Mr. Young has plausibly alleged the firs t and third elements of a hostile work environment claim: membership in a protect ed class, and the ha rassment was due to race. Only the second and fourth elements of a hostile work envi ronment claim are at play here. The questions are (1) whether Mr. Young sufficiently pleaded that he was subjected to unwelcome harassment, and (2 ) whether he plausibly alleged that the harassment was so severe or pervasive that it altered the terms or conditions of his employment and created an abus ive working environment.
Harassment . Mr. Young argues that inci dents alleged in his amended complaint show that he was singled out b ecause of his race. As described above, taking Mr. Young’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true, as we must, the incidents alleged in his amended complaint paint an unflattering portrait of the Department of Corrections’ employee trai ning requirements. Mr. Young pleads a number of factual allegations relevant to workplace harassment, including “his knowledge that his colleagues were being instructed in the same manner with the same trainings ex acerbated the hostile environment,” A.C. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1314 ¶ 46; and that he filed a formal complain t and was informed his complaint would not be investigated because it had not “establ ish[ed] reasonable cause to indicate the presence of discrimination [or] di scriminatory harassment.” Id . ¶ 49. He also alleges that the “mandatory trainings created a ra cially hostile environment” by forcing him “to hear and absorb statemen ts that were facially ba sed on race,” with “sweeping generalizations about white individuals” which “indicated that the workplace is permeated with discriminati on, ridicule, and insult.” Id. ¶ 7. One of the recommended videos had one of the interview ees using the N-word in the context of describing discriminatory housing practices. Id . ¶ 31. The training advises trainees to be careful of exclusionary “white norms,” id. ¶ 41, and critiques “white exceptionalism,” id. ¶ 24(d), a “fakequity” belief that“white allies” are “an exception to white racism” that “perpe tuates white supremacy.” Id. If not already at the destina tion, this type of race-base d rhetoric is well on the way to arriving at objectively and subjectiv ely harassing messaging. Taken seriously by managers and co-workers, the messaging could promote racial discrimination and stereotypes within the workplace. It coul d encourage racial pr eferences in hiring, firing, and promotion decisi ons. Moreover, employees w ho object to these types of messages risk being individua lly targeted for discriminato ry treatment—especially if employers explicitly or implicitly reward discriminatory outcomes. Nevertheless, legally actionable discri minatory harassment under our case law must also be sufficiently severe or pervas ive to alter the terms of employment. We turn to that question next. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1415 Severe or Pervasive Hostility. Even assuming Mr. Young pleaded facts sufficient to demonstrate he endured unwel come harassment, he must still allege facts that establish seve re or pervasive hostility. It is not enough that the plaintiff subjectively pe rceived the conduct to be severe or pervasive. We have plausible allegations of that here. Rather, the plaintiff must “show that a rational jury could fi nd that the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.” Throupe v. Univ. of Denver , 988 F.3d 1243, 1252 (10th Cir. 202 1). Severity and pervasiv eness are assessed based on a number of factors within the workpl ace: the frequency and severity of the discriminatory conduct; whether the conduc t is physically threatening or humiliating or merely an offensive utterance; a nd whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance. See Sprague v. Thorn Ams., Inc. , 129 F.3d 1355, 1365 (10th Cir.1997). The allegations in Mr. Young’s ame nded complaint do not sufficiently establish these requirements. For example, Mr. Young claims that he was “forced to resign from his position” because of the ED I Training. A.C. ¶ 48. But Mr. Young provides no specific facts, context, or expl anation for why or how he was forced to resign. We know Mr. Young was offended by the EDI training, and that he was upset about the Department’s res ponse when he complained a bout the EDI training. But what we do not know is what he expe rienced in the workplace due to the EDI training—particularly his interactions with supervisors and co-workers. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1516 While Mr. Young asserts that he experi enced severe and pervasive harassment, again he does not allege specific facts that demonstrate how the training related to his actual workplace experience. For example, he does not allege that the training occurred more than once, that his superv isors threatened to punish or otherwise discipline employees who failed to complete or agree with the mate rials, or that coworkers engaged in specific acts of insult or ridicule aimed at him because of the training. To be sure, Mr. Young contends the training could lead to safety or security concerns because of the nature of the wo rkplace—a state prison. But at this point, his concern is speculative. 2 To overcome these deficiencies, Mr. Young argues that the nature of the harassment—an employer’s official policy—should guide our analysis. Mr. Young relies on two out-of-circuit cases for th is proposition. First, he points to Henry v. CorpCar Services Houston , a case where an African-Ame rican plaintiff worked at a limousine service company staffed with pre dominantly African-Ame rican chauffeurs. 625 F. App’x 607, 608–09 (5th Cir. 2015). In recognition of Juneteenth—the holiday commemorating the 1865 announcement of th e abolition of slavery in Texas—the plaintiff asked for time off so he could attend events and speaking engagements. The

2 Perhaps an ongoing, continuing comm itment from Mr. Young’ s supervisors to mandatory EDI trainings with content simi lar to the one here may evolve into a plausible hostile workplace claim. But the si ngle training session he re is not enough. And requiring government employees to ei ther endorse a particular race-based ideological platform or risk losing their jobs could also evolve into a plausible claim of pervasive hostility—or even venture into the realm of compelled speech. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1617 plaintiff “discussed with [the general ma nager] in particular the significance of Juneteenth.” Id. at 608. The company went on to schedule multiple safety meetings for June 18th, 19th, and 20th, and required employees to a ttend at least one of the meetings. The company’s CEO hired a singing telegram—a white woman in a bl ack gorilla suit—to perform at the mandatory meetings. The performer “sang, danced, touched employees, and sat in their laps.” Id. “She did Tarzan yells and repeatedly referred in a suggestive manner to ‘big black lip s,’ ‘big black butt,’ and bananas.” Id. The performer specifically target ed the plaintiff—calling him by name and asking, “[A]re you ready for this? Here’s your Juneteenth. Oh, these nice big black hairy lips. Don’t you want some?” Id. at 609. She continued, “Oh, th at nice banana in your pants. You could have worked for La Bare’s. Oh , don’t you want to make me scream.” Id. During this performance, the general manager, who was also recording a video of the event on his cell phone, leaned over to th e plaintiff and said, “Okay. Here’s your Juneteenth.” Id. at 608–09. Certainly, Mr. Young is correct th at the harassment the plaintiff in Henry faced constituted official acts of the company and thus wa s relevant to the court’s analysis. And to be sure, the EDI training here was the official policy of the Colorado Department of Corrections. But Mr. Young does not yet allege a comparable pattern of race- based intimidation, ridicule , or insult that accompanied his employer’s official acts, whic h characterized the situation in Henry

. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1718 The same is true for the other case Mr. Young cites, Orlando v. BNP Paribas North America , No. 14 CIV. 4102 AJP, 2015 WL 63 87531, at *18 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 22, 2015). In that case, the plaintiff—a Je wish man—alleged he was subjected to a hostile work environment when his compa ny twice showed a Hitler-parody video at a mandatory off-site conference. 3 When the plaintiff reported his concerns to his supervisor, the supervisor “t old him to ‘shut the f**k up’ and made an ‘absolutely bone chilling threat at [the pl aintiff] and [his] career.’” Id. at *2. We cannot conclude that Mr. Young’s situation is compar able. While Mr. Young also watched a video that he consider ed offensive, the sim ilarities end there. The two fact patterns, and how their ef fects manifested in the workplace, are materially different. Undoubtedly, whether certain conduc t amounts to severe or pervasive harassment depends on the particular ci rcumstances and context in which such behavior takes place. Nonethel ess, two of our cases are il lustrative of mistreatment that characterize a seve re or pervasive raci ally-hostile workplace: For example, in Lounds v. Lincare , Inc. , 812 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 2015), the plaintiff—an African–American woman—alle ged racial harassment that included coworkers and the plaintiff’s supervisor us ing the N-word, condoning lynching, use of race-based stereotypes, and ot her offensive racist terms. For example, one co-worker

3 We note for clarity that the plaintiff’s Title VII clai ms were time barred but the court found a hostile work environment under New York State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law. See Orlando , 2015 WL 6387531, at *16–18. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1819 said during a conversation, “We need to bring back lynching because we have enough trees.” Lounds , 812 F.3d at 1213-14. The co-worker then approached the plaintiff and said, “‘I’m not trying to offe nd you; it’s not like I said let’s go down to 9th and Grove (the Black Neighborhood) a nd drag every black person with a noose, tie them to a truck and drag them after hanging them.’” Id . at 1214 (cleaned up). When the plaintiff objected, the co-worker said she wa s being too sensitive. Id . On another occasion, a different co-worke r began chanting, “Boom, N***a!” upon entering the office. Id

. The co-workers’ conduct mirrored the conduc t of the plaintiff’s supervisor. The plaintiff alleged that on her first day at work, her supervisor (who was also the facility manager) asked if he r name was “Shaquita.” Id . at 1213. After asking the plaintiff to introduce herself to the group, the supervisor said, “I thought your name was Shaniqua!” Id . At yet another company meetin g, the plaintiff’s supervisor instructed employees to address the company VP as “Yes Messa.” Id . at 1214. An employee present at the meeting reported that the comment visibly offended the plaintiff and that the plaintiff “had tears in her ey es” afterward. Id

. Consider next Tademy v. Union Pac. Corp. , 614 F.3d 1132 (10th Cir. 2008). There, the plaintiff—an African-Ameri can male—alleged racial harassment consisting of the N-word and “[N-word] go home” etched into his locker on separate occasions, racist cartoons posted on compan y billboards, a co-worker describing a black manager as “F***ing Ku nta Kinte,” a manager addr essing him as “boy,” and most troubling, a “life-sized hangman’s noose prominen tly suspended from a large Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 1920 industrial wall clock.” 614 F.3d at 1135–37. “The sight of the noose caused [the plaintiff] to become so nauseated that he vomited.” Id. at 1137. The plaintiffs in Lounds and Tademy worked in environments permeated with race-based harassment, each enduring raci ally-abusive conduct, ridicule, and insult from both co-workers and superv isors. The abusive workin g environments created in Lounds and Tademy may well be a potential outcome of the type of training Mr. Young has alleged. But at this point, Mr. Young did not plead sufficient facts showing that he experienced se vere or pervasive harassment in the course of his dayto-day job; he cannot rest only on the insu lts he experienced on the day he completed the EDI training. 4

4 One example of a complaint involving wo rkplace diversity training that survived a motion to dismiss is found in De Piero v. Pa. State Univ et. al. , No. CV 23-2281, 2024 WL 128209 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2024). In that case, the comp laint alleged that the plaintiff—De Piero—had to attend se veral conferences a nd training sessions where facilitators “ascrib[ed] negative tr aits to white people or white teachers without exception and as flowi ng inevitably from their race.” Id . at *7. Importantly, the plaintiff’s complaint included “emails and interpersonal interactions” from the time period as well: (1) a colleague making a comment that “resistance to wearing masks ‘is more likely to be led by white males;’” (2) an email from the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclus ion instructing white employ ees at Penn State “‘feel terrible;’” and (3) messages a nd emails from the plaintif f’s supervisor encouraging him to “assure that all stude nts see that white supremacy manifests itself in language and in writing pedagogy,” a nd “urging him to watch a vi deo titled ‘White Teachers Are a Problem.’” Id . at *7. De Piero eventually resigned from his position at Penn State, citing his disagreement with its “r ecent emphasis on so-called ‘antiracist’ programming.” Id . at *3. Another example is found in Diemert v. City of Seattle , No. 2:22-CV-1640, --- F. Supp. 3d ----, 2023 WL 5530009 (W.D. Wash . Aug. 28, 2023). In that case, the plaintiff alleged that a di vision manager asked him, “W hat could a straight white male possibly offer our department?” Id. at *1. Then, a “Director-level employee told Diemert it was ‘impossible to be racist toward ‘white people.’’” Id. During Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2021 In sum, Mr. Young alleges no comparable actions on the part of his co-workers or supervisors at the Department of Corre ctions. Mr. Young wa s not singled out by other correctional officers for race-base d opprobrium. Nor was he physically confronted by a co-worker because of his obj ections to the EDI training. True, the racial rhetoric contained in the Department of Public Health & Environment’s online training materials echoes the ra cist views espoused by the co-workers and supervisors
in Lounds and Tademy . But the lack of racial an imus manifesting itself in Mr. Young’s day-to-day work environment distinguishes his case from those that have ratified a racially- hostile workplace claim. In shor t, Mr. Young has not plausibly alleged severe or pervasive harassment that altered the terms or conditions of his employment to create an abusive work environment.

mandatory training, another directo r-level employee “r epeated a similar sentiment . . . and added that all white pe ople have privilege and are racist.” Id. The plaintiff also faced physical aggression from his superv isor, who “‘chest bumped’ him, got in his face, and told [Diemert] he had white privilege and racist motives.” Id. at *2. The plaintiff alleged he was for ced to resign because the City of Seattle could no longer accommodate his request to work from home because of staffing shortages and his belief “that employees of color were give n priority to telework.” Id. The two cases stand for roughly the same settled and sound principle, which the court in De Piero articulated and we endorse: mere ly discussing “the influence of racism on our society does not necessarily violate federal law.” No. CV 23-2281, 2024 WL 128209 at *8. But “the way thes e conversations are carried out in the workplace matters.” Id . “When employers talk about race—any race—with a constant drumbeat of essentialist, determ inistic, and negative language, they risk liability under federal law.” Id . (citing McDonald v. Santa Fe Rail Transp. Co. , 427 U.S. 273, 278-79, 286 -87 (1976)). Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2122 Because Mr. Young has failed to pl ausibly allege the second and fourth elements of a Title VII hostile work environment claim, we af firm the district court.
B. Equal protection claim Mr. Young also asserted an equal prot ection claim that the district court dismissed for lack of standing. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Am endment guarantees that “[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisd iction the equal protection of the laws,” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, and “keeps governmental decision makers from treating differently persons who ar e in all relevant respects alike.” Soskin v.
Reinertson , 353 F.3d 1242, 1247 (10th Cir. 2004). “The Clause ‘creates no substantive rights. Instead, it embodies a general rule that States must treat like cases alike but may treat unlik e cases accordingly.’” Teigen v. Renfrow , 511 F.3d 1072, 1083 (10th Cir. 2007) (quoting Vacco v. Quill , 521 U.S. 793, 799 (1997)). Relief for an Equal Protection Clause violation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is limited to prospective injunctive or declaratory relief. See Williams v. Utah Dep’t of Corr. , 928 F.3d 1209, 1214 (10th Cir. 2019) (citing Ex parte Young , 209 U.S. 123 (1908)). To satisfy Article III’s standing requireme nt, a plaintiff must establish: (1) an injury in fact; (2) a suffici ent causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of; and (3) a likelihood of re dressability by a favorable decision. Baker v. USD 229 Blue Valley , 979 F.3d 866, 871 (10th Cir. 2020). For purposes of prospective injunctive or declaratory relief , a plaintiff must allege that he is “suffering a continuing injury or [is] unde r a real and immediate threat of being Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2223 injured in the future.” Tandy v. City of Wichita , 380 F.3d 1277, 1283 (10th Cir. 2004). Conjectural or hypothe tical injuries, or non-impendi ng future injuries are insufficient. See Brown v. Buhman , 822 F.3d 1151, 1165 (10th Cir. 2016). Mr. Young alleges that the individual de fendants violated the Equal Protection Clause by using training materi als that “classify individuals by race, treat individuals differently based on race, and instruct empl oyees to treat each ot her differently based on race.” A.C. ¶ 60. Mr. Y oung requests declaratory and in junctive relief against the two individual defendants and their state ag encies to stop them from using the EDI training materials that are based on improper racial motivations. Mr. Young alleges that the EDI training ma terials are facially discriminatory. He alleges the materials “demean and stig matize” him and “other similarly situated individuals, based on race and skin color.” Id. Mr. Young further alleges that the “[u]se of the training materials was motiv ated by a discriminatory purpose,” with “[w]hite individuals . . . unifo rmly stigmatized . . . as ‘raci st,’ [and] ‘privileged,’ with any potential pushback preemptively de scribed as ‘white fragility.’” Id. ¶ 67 (internal citations omitted). The Supreme Court requires that racial cl assification survive strict scrutiny. “One of the principal reasons race is treate d as a forbidden classification is that it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.” Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll. , 600 U.S. 181, 220 (2023) (quoting Rice v. Cayetano , 528 U.S. 495, 517 (2000)). When a state agency treats employees “on the Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2324 basis of race, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assumption that [employees] of a particular race, because of their race, think alike.” Miller v. Johnson , 515 U.S. 900, 911–12 (1995). So st ate-sanctioned training prog rams that import racial assumptions or promote race-based differe ntial treatment may very well offend the Equal Protection Clause. That said, the district c ourt correctly dismissed Mr . Young’s equal protection claim for lack of standing because Mr. Young was no longer employed by the Department of Corrections. Mr. Young asse rts he has standing fo r prospective relief because he seeks reinstatemen t under his Title VII cause of action. But Mr. Young does not contend that he has standing to pu rsue this cause of action apart from his Title VII claim. In other words, Mr. Y oung’s standing to pursu e his equal protection claim requires he first prevail on his Title VII claim. Because he cannot do so, we analyze whether Mr. Young maintains independent st anding to pursue an equal protection claim. Mr. Young has not pleaded su fficient facts to establis h Article III standing to pursue his equal protection claim in the am ended complaint because he did not plead an ongoing injury that a favorable judgm ent will redress. Mr. Young’s equal protection claim is based on the injury he purportedly suffered from having to view the EDI training. The relief he seek s is enjoining Defendants from using or promulgating the EDI training materials. But Mr. Young resigned from employment with the Department of Corrections befo re bringing this laws uit, did not plead constructive discharge, and has not requested reinstat ement as part of his Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2425 equal protection claim. Be cause he no longer works for the Department and he has not requested reinstatement as a remedy, a ny relief in the form of a change in Department policy will not redress an ongoing injury to him

. Mr. Young contends an employee reque sting reinstatement has standing to challenge his former employer’s policies. That is true in a narrow sense, but inapplicable given Mr. Young’s two cause s of action. The authority Mr. Young points to does not hold that a plaintiff who lacks standing for one claim can bootstrap it to another claim for which he re quests reinstatement. He relies on Robinson v. Blank for this bootstrapping pr oposition, but the plai ntiff there brought a single Title VII claim—seeking as relief both reinstatement to his former job and a change to his former employer’s policy. No. 11 CIV. 2480 PAC DF, 2013 WL 2156040, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 20, 2013). That is mark edly different from Mr . Young’s complaint here: he brings one Title VII claim seeking reinstatement as relief and a separate and distinctequal protection claim seeking prospec tive relief. So “[Mr. Young] must demonstrate standing for each cl aim that [he] press[es].” TransUnion LLC v.
Ramirez , 594 U.S. 413, 431 (2021). But, as th e district court noted, “[t]here is simply no request for reinstat ement that is appropriately tied to the equal protection claim as pleaded by [Plaintiff], and equally important, ther e is no nexus between any potential reinstatement and the relief he does seek.” Order at 25–26. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Mr. Young’s equal pr otection claim. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2526 C. Leave to Amend the Complaint In his response to the motion to dismis s, Mr. Young did not request leave to amend his complaint. Nor did he separately move to amend. Absent a request to amend, a district court may dismiss the action rather than sua sponte granting leave to amend. See Barnett v. Hall, Estill, Hardwi ck, Gable, Golden & Nelson, P.C. , 956 F.3d 1228, 1236 (10th Cir. 2020); see also Calderon v. Kan. Dep’t of Soc. & Rehab.
Servs ., 181 F.3d 1180, 1186 (10th Ci r. 1999) (“[A] court need not grant leave to amend when a party fails to file a formal motion.”). We review for abuse of discretion. See SCO Group, Inc. , 879 F.3d at 1085. Mr. Young contends that he was una ble to request leave to amend his complaint because, if he had do ne so, local rules permitted th e district court to reject his response brief. But we see no insurmou ntable obstacle. Mr . Young could have filed a prophylactic motion fo r leave to amend that was separate from his response brief. Alternatively, Mr. Young could ha ve identified additional proposed allegations that would have cured the amended comp laint’s defects and moved the court to reconsider its dismissal order. In its direction to the clerk of court to terminate the case, the district court noted that Mr. Young neither requested leave to amend in his briefing nor in a separate filing, thus comm unicating the rationale for its choice not to sua sponte grant leave to amend. Given the informati on it had at hand, the di strict court’s choice not to sua sponte grant leave to amend was not an abuse of discretion. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2627 

### III. Conclusion For the reasons stated above, we affirm the district court’ s dismissal of Mr. Young’s claims and the denial of leave to amend. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 2723-1063, Young v. Colorado Department of Corrections MATHESON , Circuit Judge, concurring: I concur in the result. I agree that th e complaint did not plausibly allege the “severe or pervasive” element of a Title V II hostile work environment claim, that Mr. Young lacks standing for his § 19 83 equal protection claim, and that the district court did not err in failing to grant sua sponte leave to amend. I do not think the court otherwise needs to comment on the EDI trai ning or the potential for future legal challenges to it or other EDI programs, nor to address whether Mr. Young plausibly alleged the first three elements of the Title VII claim. I therefor e do not join those parts of the opinion as unnecessary to resolve this case. Appellate Case: 23-1063 Document: 010111013325 Date Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 28