I’m often asked, “Eric, where do you find this stuff?”
Why TMZ, of course. Break ’em off TMZ:
“Whitney Wolfe claims in a new lawsuit — obtained by TMZ — she was mercilessly brutalized by the other execs who wanted to remove her title because no one would take a site like Tinder seriously if they knew it was founded by a 24-year-old chick.
Wolfe says one of the execs made a romantic play for her and she eventually dated him … but it didn’t end well and she claims he then waged a harassment campaign against her.
She says the guy also texted her when he found out she was interested in someone else, saying, ‘I will s**t on him in life. He can enjoy my leftovers.’ She says she was also talking to some Muslim men and he texted her, ‘You prefer to social climb middle-aged Muslim pigs that stand for nothing.’
And Wolfe says the guy referred to one of her girlfriends as ‘a liberal, lying desperate slut.'”
Here is a link to Ms. Wolfe’s complaint against Tinder, and another link (here) to a press release about the complaint from the law firm representing Ms. Wolfe.
For those who don’t know, Tinder describes itself (here) as “the fun way to connect with new and interesting people around you.” More bluntly, TMZ describes Tinder as “an online dating app best known for hooking people up who want to bang.”
It is against this backdrop that I offer a takeaway. To establish sexual harassment, one must show that, among other things, not only was he/she offended, but that a reasonable person in their shoes would have been offended by the same workplace behavior. When measuring what is offensive, the nature of the workplace matters. Indeed, what may be offensive in a law firm environment, may not be, say, in a writing meeting on the set of the television show Friends.
Still, there are limits. And just because someone works at Tinder, which apparently helps users bang, doesn’t mean that she consents to being the target of nasty, insensitive comments.
So, kindly remind your employees that, no matter the environment, sexual harassment won’t fly.