Hostile Work Environment

Workplace harassment law is a speech restriction of remarkable breadth. It goes far beyond slurs, hardcore pornography, repeated vulgar sexual propositions, and the like, and can suppress, among other things,The first place to look in determining the scope of harassment law, of course, is the legal definition of "harassment." Speech can be punished as workplace harassment if it's"severe or pervasive" enough tocreate a "hostile or abusive work environment"based on race, religion, sex, national origin, 1 age, disability (including obesity), 2 military membership or veteran status, 3 or, in some jurisdictions, sexual orientation, marital status, 4 transsexualism or cross dressing, 5 political affiliation, 6 criminal record, 7 prior psychiatric treatment, 8 occupation, 9 citizenship status, 10 personal appearance, 11 "matriculation," 12 tobacco use outside work, 13 Appalachianorigin, 14 receipt of public assistance, 15 or dishonorable discharge from the military 16for the plaintiff and for a reasonable person.Note what the definition does not require. It does not require that the speech consist of obscenity or fighting words or threats or other constitutionally unprotected statements. It does not require that the speech be profanity or pornography, which some have considered "low value." 17 Under the definition, it is eminently possible for political, religious, or social commentary, or "legitimate" art, to be punished. 18"David Duke for President" posters, after all, might well be quite offensive to many reasonable people based on their race, religion, or national origin, and may create a hostile environment; 19 likewise for confederate insignia. 20 This would be even more true of bigoted or insensitive remarks about minority or female political candidates. 21 Many reasonable people might view strident denunciations of Catholicism, whether politicalor religious, as creating a hostile environment for devout Catholics, 22 or criticisms of feminism as creating a hostile environment for women. 23 A reasonable person who believes that pinups "encourag[e] men to view [women] as sex objects" 24 might say something like the following, even about classical paintings:I personally find "art" in any form whether it be a painting, a Greek statue or a picture out of Playboy which displays genitals, buttocks, and/or nipples of the human body, to be pornographic and, in this instance, very offensive and degrading to me as a woman.Even if I wanted to personally take time to appreciate this kind Replica Bags of "art," I reserve the right for that to be my choice and to not have it thrust in my face on my way into a meeting with my superiors, most of whom are men. 25B. The CasesAnd if some complainants make these claims, some fact finders may well agree:Religious Speech: If some complainants make these claims, some fact finders may well agree. A state court has in fact found that it was religious harassment for an employer to put religious articles in its employee newsletter and Christian themed verses on its paychecks. 26 The EEOC likewise found that a claim that an employer "permitted Discount Handbags the daily broadcast of prayers over the public address system" over the span of a year was "sufficient to allege the existence of a hostile working environment predicated on religious discrimination."27 A recent article by two employment lawyers gives "repeated, unwanted preaching episodes [by a fundamentalist Christian employee] that offend coworkers and adversely affect their working conditions" as a "bright line example[]" of actionable harassment; an employer in such a situation would be "well advised to take swift remedial action." 28If polite religious proselytizing can be harassment, then of course harsher criticism of religion would be, too. In the EEOC's words, "disparag[ing] the religion or beliefs of others" in the workplace may be illegal; "a Christian employee would have recourse under Title VII if a secular humanist employer" or presumably secular humanist coworkers "engaged in a pattern of ridiculing the employee's religious beliefs. 29 A state administrative agency has found that an employeewas religiously harassed by a Seventh Day Adventist coworker who often talked about religion to everyone. There was no allegation that the coworker used any religious slurs, though he did "[make] negative comments to [plaintiff] about her Lutheran faith," did "criticize[] (and tr[y] to change) [plaintiff's] personal life style," and did "depress[] [plaintiff] a great deal" with what plaintiff saw as "Seventh Day Adventism's pessimistic doomsday outlook." Likewise, a federal district court has held that a pattern of religiously themed comments, which mostly consisted of statements that the target was a sinnerand had to repent, and didn't include any religious slurs, could be religious harassment. 30Social and Political Commentary: Likewise, one court Wholesale Replica Handbags has said that coworkers' use Discount Bags of job titles such as "foreman" and "draftsman" may constitute sexual harassment, 31 and a Kentucky human rights agency has gotten a company to change its "Men Working" signs (at a cost of over $35,000) on the theory that the signs "perpetuat[e] a discriminatory work environment and could be deemed unlawful under the Kentucky Civil Rights Act." 32 Another court has characterized an employee's hanging "pictures of the Ayatollah Khome[i]ni and a burning American flag in Iran in her own cubicle" as "national origin harassment" of an Iranian employee who saw the pictures. 33