Former state employee accuses director of sexual harassment
I found this article online and thought it was interesting part of it talks about a sexual harassment complaint from a former Agriculture Department employee that has accused the department's director of sexual harassment. The interesting thing is that she is also accusing the director of gender discrimination and punishing her for complaining about the way she was treated. It seems like the director is being accused of hugging her, kissing her cheeks and telling her he would like to see her in a wet T-shirt contest. The director has said that he has already apologized for his actions. I am wondering if you guys think that this conduct is severe enough or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environment. Because if it is not then it is beyond Title VII's purview. If you remember the reading of HARRIS v. FORKLIFT SYSTEMS INC, the same issue came up. So do you think it falls under title XII? What is she does get it granted to a jury what then, should she be able to supervisor job if she wins the case? or do you think that the suit she bring up will compromise her relations with her fellow workers to a point where if she is their boss, they will be very careful about how they approach her or talk to her out of fear and hurt the success of the business if she is promoted?
Here is the link to the story
Here is the link to the story
posted by Jeremy Byers at
3:20 PM
3 Comments:
Sorry the link didn't post to the article... here it is if you are interested.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/02/27/news/022507mobrf.txt
Whether or not the director's actions were sufficient to constitute a hostile environment form of sexual harrasment depends on many factors. First of all, his conduct was obviously unwelcome by the female employee which it was directed at. Although his conduct is undoubtedly sexual in nature and inappropriate, what is unknown is whether or not this was a one-time incident which occurred in a workplace context, whether this was solely an employment related relationship, etc.
If this was a one-time incident or did not occur in the workplace, and he apologized and stopped behaving this way towards her, it is less likely that his actions would justify a claim of hostile work environment sexual harassment. On the other hand, if he continually behaved this way towards the employee over a long period of time and ignored requests for him to stop, it is more likely that a hostile work environment has been created.
A hostile work environment can be created through just one encounter inside or even outside the workplace. I believe that the director's sexually explicit comments to the employee as well as his physical actions onto her would constitute a dangerous and hostile situation that most reasonable employees would not like to return to. The incident was quite unwelcome in addition to the possibility that the employee may have lost a promotion and was even fired for being a woman. Her complaint that her boss refused to promote her because she would be supervising males was simply the whip cream on the sundae for this agriculture department dummy.
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