Butt slaps are rarely appropriate. Not in the courtroom. Not in the workplace. Even Buttslaps, LLC in Butte, Montana frowns on butt slaps at work.
(I totally made that last part up. Don’t Google it).
Where am I going with this? Hell When an employee sues for sexual harassment, he or she must prove several elements. One of those elements is that the employee was offended by sexual conduct directed at them.
You’re right, Commissioner Feldblum. Social media is awesome!
Last Friday, I posted here about a recent federal-court decision addressing the sex discrimination claims of a transgender employee. What drew my attention to the case was this Facebook status update from EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, in which she touted the court’s decision as further support for the EEOC’s position that transgender discrimination is sex discrimination under Title VII. In my Friday post, I concluded that, while the court did allow the plaintiff’s sex discrimination claims to proceed to trial, it wasn’t because of her transgender status. Rather, the court reasoned that the employer may have engaged in unlawful sex stereotyping. Sex stereotyping definitely violates Title VII.
In these Summer months, it’s easy to relax a bit. For example, last weekend I spent Sunday morning sleeping off a fun Saturday night in the shade of a tree on my front lawn while my four kids played slip-and-slide in traffic on the front lawn too. Although, I did catch my youngest two cooling off in drinking out of puddles on the sidewalk.
You won’t find this one on the SAT’s. Continue reading
Folks, let me give you a little free Friday HR pro tip:
If a female employee complains to a female manager that another male manager is sexually harassing her, it’s not ok to for the female manager to respond thusly,
“He’s a guy and you work with guys. Ignore it and smile.”
That’s bad. Worse than pooping on a warehouse floor. (Even worse with the music I selected)
Continue reading
Geez! What’s gotten into me this week? Even by The Employer Handbook editorial standards, which are lower than Title VII’s religious accommodation undue hardship test.
[I’ll be here all week. Sorry.]
First, a 1000+ word blog post on ADA telework, followed by two cheeky posts on bad interview questions and the FMLA. So, naturally, this builds up to a Thursday post about oral.
As I resist every urge to cheapen this further by resorting to silly puns and other double entendre, allow me to set the stage for you: Continue reading
What else is there to blog about after reading a federal court opinion about Yolo (You Only Live Once) and sexual harassment?
Geez. Last night, I could have peed plutonium while flaming monkeys sprang forth from my word hole, and I still would have blogged Yolo.
More on Yolo after the jump…
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The opinion contains the words “fingered,” “genital area,” and “sexual assault,” plus an allegation that the assailant tried to hit the plaintiff with her car in the mall parking lot. But, the court concluded that there was no sexual harassment, because none of these events “affected the conditions of her employment.”
** napalms Washington-bound resume; shreds ashes **
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