Just another Friday here at the ole Handbook. Oh, get your head out of the gutter! This is a family blog.
(Y’all have families, right?)
For serious, today’s lede isn’t just gratuitous, there is an employment-law connection here.
School teacher, Lawrence Smizer, is a regular Facebook wordsmith:
To all my family that fought my sister tooth and nail over some BULLSHIT (And you know who you are) FUCK YOU BITCHES!!!! HE IS GOING HOME WHERE HE BELONGS!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHA AHAH HAHAH HAAH
Smizer was Facebook friends with two co-workers. They dimed him out to the school and Smizer was fired. So, he sued for reverse-race discrimination.
Reverse-race discrimination, mmm-kay. How do you think it worked out for him?
Find out after the jump…
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Maetta Vance, the only African-American working in her department at Ball State University, claimed that she was subjected to both race discrimination and retaliation. Vance later sued and lost because she could not establish employer liability, which, in turn, depended on whether the alleged harassment was perpetrated by supervisors or coworkers.
Employers have an affirmative defense when the supervisor harassment does not result in a tangible employment action. If, however, the harassing supervisor fires, suspends, or takes some other similar action against the victim, it’s check mate.
In instances of co-worker harassment, where tangible employment actions wouldn’t be at issue (because the harassing co-worker wouldn’t have that power), to prevail on a discrimination claim, the plaintiff must show, among other things, that the employer has “been negligent either in discovering or remedying the harassment.”
Helene Tyrrell worked as a line chef at a jockey club in Arkansas during the Winter of 2010. She claimed that immediately after she started working, and pretty much throughout her employment, the n-word was bandied about like you and I would say “hello” and “goodbye.” However, only once was the “n”-word hurled in her direction.
But it wasn’t the n-word. No, that’s discriminatory.
Rather, according to the court in Tyrell v. Oaklawn Jockey Club, the “comment directed at Plaintiff and one other co-worker happened after the kitchen crew nearly mused getting breakfast out one Sunday. The comment, was according to Plaintiff, ‘I told you niggas we could get this done. I told you we could do this. Y’all my niggas.'”
To all the haters of social-media policies:
If nothing less, the social-media policy reminds employees that if they act the fool online, it may impact their standing in the workplace, and, ultimately, cost them their jobs.
Some employees, however, are just so ignorant. Thus, I doubt that any employer policy will impact how they behave online.
Two despicable examples from this past week follow after the jump…
Take a few minutes to read this decision. It will blow your mind.
Here’s the long and short of it:
Three black employees sue for race discrimination claiming that they were subjected to a racially-hostile work environment. The court actually did the math:
Back in 2010, Douglas Clayton had a rough Summer.
In August, Mr. Clayton was employed as a deckhand on a boat in Louisiana — that is, until one of his white co-workers allegedly raised a wrench to Clayton and told him to get his “stupid mother f**king n**ger ass” off the boat. Mr. Clayton promptly complained to Human Resources and was transferred to another of the defendant’s boats.
In September, Mr. Clayton again reported to Human Resources that his new co-workers continued to say “n**ger,” among other comments, around him. Allegedly, HR responded by telling Mr. Clayton to “lighten up.” Allegedly, later that day, after telling one of his co-workers to stop using the word “n**ger” on the boat, that co-worker attacked Mr. Clayton from behind.
[Editor’s Note: Because “Playing the Race Card” was already taken]
The title of this post is comprised of the seven poorly-chosen words from a Vice President of Operations at a Detroit casino right before the casino terminated a white employee for allegedly botching supervision of a dealer card shuffle.
What do you think? Do we have a live race-discrimination claim? Oh yeah, we do! Details after the jump, as well as thoughts on employers who strive to maintain racial balance in the workplace…
[If you listen carefully, you can actually hear the sound of page-hits and prurient reader interest cascading at The Employer Handbook. It’s got a little funky Salt n’ Pepa beat to it…]
Last May, I slobbered over blogged here about a former Indianapolis Colts’ cheerleader who sued the team claiming that the Colts discriminated against her on the basis of her race (Asian) and national origin (Indonesian).
Earlier this week, the court ruled on the Colts’ motion to dispose of the case. While I think we can all agree that this sort of hard-hitting blog fodder is better suited for a Monday post, I’m going to blog the heck out of the Court’s decision…after the jump. (It’s a long post, but it’s soooooo worth it).
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What if I told you that a female black employee was called “monkey” and “nappy head Raggedy Ann” at work?
What if I then told you that the employee subsequently sued in New Jersey state court; quite possibly the most plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction in the U.S. — next to California?
And guess what? She lost. Oh my!
What the heck happened and what can employers learn from this recent decision? Find out after the jump…
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