WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court stepped into a dispute yesterday over whether white managers can be sued for calling black employees “boys.”

The court unanimously overturned an appeals court decision that said the term “boy” alone was not evidence of workplace discrimination and ordered the court to reconsider the matter.

The decision, one of the first actions with new Justice Alito, is a loss for Tyson Foods Incorporated which was sued by two longtime black employees who claimed they were passed over for promotions by a white manager who called them “boys.”

A jury awarded Anthony Ash and John Hithon $1.75 million apiece in damages, but a judge threw out the decision.

Mr. Ash had 15 years experience with Tyson Foods and Mr. Hithon 13 years. A white man who got a management job they sought at an Alabama plant had less than two years experience.

Eric Schnapper, a law professor at the University of Washington who is representing the men, told justices that the term “boy” is offensive and is considered a slur by other courts.

“This form of verbal abuse has its origins in the slave era,” he wrote in the appeal.

In sending the case back to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the court released an unsigned opinion. Justice Alito joined his colleagues in the opinion, in which the court said: “Although it is true the disputed word will not always be evidence of racial animus, it does not follow that the term, standing alone, is always benign.”

The court said the 11th Circuit was wrong to rule that “modifiers or qualifications are necessary in all instances.”

The lawyers for Tyson Foods said that evidence showed the manager “was rude and curt to all employees – white and black – but had never used racial epithets.”