This gourd looks like a…: Claims of sexual harassment in the Bloomington mayor’s office.

In January, former safe and civil city director Marsha Bradford filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC against the City of Bloomington, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and offensive conduct. This story is being followed by the Herald Times, and is available here (password protected; available through the IU library website in the Main or Journalism libraries). In her claim, Bradford listed several incidences of pranks and jokes of a sexual nature that she felt to be offensive and inappropriate for the workplace. One incident, which has been cited several times in reports about this claim, occurred when the mayor, Mark Kruzan, placed two large gourds on his desk in what Bradford believed to be suggestive of a penis. According to Kruzan, the gourds were not a joke, but were a gift from a vendor at the farmers market. When he was told that someone had made a joke about the gourds, he removed them the same day.

The city’s official response, which was released to the HT on March 18^th, addresses several incidents raised by Bradford:

They include the following:

• “At a staff meeting, an employee announced that his wife was expecting their second child. According to Ms. Bradford, the Mayor said something along the lines of, ‘and I thought he spent the last year solely dedicated to his job.’”

• “Employees in the Mayor’s office hid a stuffed toy in various places for co-workers to discover as a running joke. Ms. Bradford said the toy was placed in an office chair (not in her office) in a suggestive manner.”

• “Someone placed gourds that had been dropped off as a gift by a vendor from the City’s Farmers’ Market in the Deputy Mayor’s chair. Ms. Bradford was offended by the employees laughing at and calling attention to the shape of the gourds.”

• “At a staff meeting at which the Deputy Mayor had his dog, someone commented on the dog’s collar. The Deputy Mayor made a joke about the collar.”

Attorney for the city, Elizabeth Russell stated,

“Statutory and case law do not support Ms. Bradford’s attempts to turn trivial incidents into a federal employment case. Her charge, unsupported by law or facts, does an injustice to employees with legitimate, fair employment law complaints.”

Further, the city said:

“The number of incidents Ms. Bradford has brought to the City’s attention is quite small and spread over many months. None of them involved improper touching. They were in the nature of pranks or joking comments and not in any reasonable person’s view ‘severe.’ None of them were targeted at Ms. Bradford. Courts have said that indirect harassment has less of an impact on the plaintiff than direct harassment, and that the conduct has to be even more severe and pervasive to be actionable.”

The original story published on this matter, states that Bradford first issued a written complaint on April 7, 2005.

“According to the city’s response, Grundmann found that her allegations of such incidents did not constitute a “hostile environment,” but he met with Kruzan and his two chiefs of staff to let them know an employee had raised concerns.

“They made it absolutely clear that no offense was intended, and that they would see to it that any behavior that could even potentially be considered inappropriate or offensive was discontinued. None of them asked Mr. Grundmann who had made the allegations and he did not volunteer the information,” the statement reads.”

Bradford resigned on July 25^th.

The city claims that these charges are really just the retaliatory actions of a disgruntled employee who was unhappy about her salary. (She made $43,000, with other salaries in the mayor’s office ranging from $48,500 to the mayor’s earnings of $79,745. Bradford also charges that her salary is the result of gender and age discrimination, but I will not discuss this portion of her claim here.)

Based on the excerpts I posted (if you were unable to access the original articles), does it sound to you like Bradford has a case for hostile environment sexual harassment?

If so, do you think that Bradford will be successful in going up against the mayor, or will his status make it difficult for her to win her claim?

If you do not think Bradford has a legitimate claim, do you think that there is still potential for this to damage Mayor Kruzan’s career? Do you think that this ever plays into individual’s reasoning when bringing frivolous claims to the EEOC?

Based on the information we have, do you think you would feel uncomfortable in the work environment described above?