discrimination at work ?

[Frost]

need some advice on something that happend today to one of my buddies at work, around 3pm it started into a simple conversation between him and another guy that works there, my friend was asking this guy if he should work overtime next weekend to make some extra money, to which the guy replied 'well you live at home with your parents why do you need the extra money' so my friend says well im sorry but my daddy didnt buy me a house, to which the guy responded really loud in the office in front of about 20 people,,"what the f**k is your problem, why do you work here, you'r a piece of shit eurotrash, get the f**k out of usa, why are you in this country", seriously out of nowhere this guy went off on my friend and im amazed at how my buddy held back from knocking this guy out, but yea he went and told the lead(manager on duty) what had happened, and the lead which is friends with this guy apparently they go fishing and stuff together tells my friend "well you instigated it". no appropriate action was taken, i feel this was discrimination, and if its not then i dont know what discrimination is, i mean everyone in the room heard it and on top of that the manager on duty did not take any action at all, my friend had to stay and work next to the guy until his shift ended at 12am. my question is what would you guys do, what do you feel the necessary actions should be? would consulting a lawyer be an appropriate step ? im not really familiar with this kinda situation