Roach, James, v. Dresser Industrial Valve and Intrument Division
The legal case Roach, James, v. Dresser Industrial Valve & Instrument Division established Cajuns for the first time as a federally recognized and protected national ethnic minority. Rendered in July 1980, the ruling by Judge Edwin F. Hunter resulted from a lawsuit filed by petroleum industry worker Calvin J. Roach, who claimed Cajun descent through his mother's family (who were Legers).Roach alleged that his employer fired him after he objected to a superior's frequent use of the arguably derogatory term "coonass" when referring to Cajuns. As Roach's attorneys claimed, "Plaintiff was terminated from his employment with defendant . . . because of his national origin and his association with co-employees of the same national origin, to-wit, Acadians or "Cajuns", and because he objected to excessive and opprobrious derogatory comments made by members of the management of defendant relating to co-employees who were Acadian or "Cajuns". . . ."
Because the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbid discrimination against ethnic groups in the workplace, Roach subsequently sued his former employer, whose attorneys argued that Cajuns could not be a national minority because Acadia had never been an independent country. Judge Hunter disagreed, however, and ruled in Roach's favor, declaring that Cajuns were indeed of "foreign descent" and therefore deserved protection under federal anti-discriminatory laws.