March 28 (Reuters) - A federal judge in California on

Thursday appeared poised to reject Tesla's bid to toss

out a U.S. agency's lawsuit accusing the electric carmaker of

tolerating rampant harassment of Black workers at its Fremont,

California assembly plant.

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco

during a hearing repeatedly disagreed with claims by Tesla's

lawyers that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) failed

to include any facts in its lawsuit backing up its claim of

pervasive unlawful race bias.

The EEOC in a 10-page lawsuit filed last year said that from

2015 to the present, Black workers at the Tesla plant have

routinely been subjected to racist slurs and graffiti, including

swastikas and nooses, and Tesla has failed to investigate

complaints.

Tesla, whose CEO is billionaire businessman Elon Musk, is

facing similar claims in a separate lawsuit by a California

civil rights agency and a class action on behalf of 6,000 Black

workers. The company has denied wrongdoing in all three cases.

Raymond Cardozo, a lawyer for Tesla, told Corley during the

hearing that the EEOC had not met a requirement of showing that

its claims were "plausible" and can move forward. The lawsuit

did not include the names of workers who allegedly faced

discrimination or details about when or where in the factory the

misconduct occurred, Cardozo said.

It is not plausible "when someone is saying that every

single person not of that race, from 2015 to 2024, discriminated

against every single (Black) person," Cardozo said.

"That's not what it's saying," the judge replied. "It's

saying this racism ... was ubiquitous such that it created a

hostile environment for Black workers. Maybe it's untrue, but

why doesn't that state a claim?"

Corley cited a paragraph in the lawsuit that states that an

unidentified worker told the EEOC that a highly offensive racial

slur was "both his white co-workers' and supervisors' preferred

pronoun on the production line."

"That you don't know his name doesn't mean it's not

plausible," the judge said, adding that Tesla will be able to

obtain more information during the discovery process leading up

to a trial.

Cardozo said that without more details, Tesla could not

attempt to address the alleged discrimination.

Corley seemed unmoved.

"I'm not persuaded at all, I have to say," the judge said.

Corley did not say when she would issue a ruling. The judge

also seemed skeptical of Tesla's bid to alternatively pause the

case pending the outcome of the class action and the lawsuit by

the California agency.

The EEOC's lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and

punitive damages for an unspecified number of Black workers,

along with an order requiring Tesla to overhaul its policies

prohibiting discrimination and retaliation.