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Employees who provide evidence during an informal investigation of discrimination in the workplace are legally protected against
retaliation from the boss or other senior managers.
In an important workers' rights decision announced Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 shields employees from retaliatory acts even when the employee hasn't filed a formal complaint.
In
an eight-page decision written by Justice David Souter, the high court
cast a broad blanket of protection over American workers struggling in
a hostile work environment. Those employees who help identify and root
out allegedly discriminatory actions by senior managers and supervisors
– even though they may not have filed a formal complaint – are
nonetheless protected from retaliation, the court said.
The decision puts managers and supervisors on
notice that they face legal consequences if they use their power in the
organization to try to cover up their own discriminatory actions by
retaliating against complaining employees. In addition, the decision
puts employees on notice that, when they come forward to help expose
discrimination in the workplace, they clearly enjoy the protections of
the law.
The decision comes in the case of Vicky
Crawford, a 30-year employee in the payroll department of the
Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn. Ms.
Crawford agreed to answer questions during an informal inquiry into
allegations that the director of employee relations had engaged in
sexual harassment of female workers in the office. Among the director's
duties was investigation of sexual-harassment complaints.
Crawford did not initiate the investigation, nor
had she filed any formal charges. The internal inquiry was conducted by
a female lawyer in the legal department. Crawford told the lawyer she
was afraid she might lose her job if she told the truth about the
manager's behavior.
Crawford eventually answered the questions. She
was one of three women who told the lawyer that the director of
employee relations had made repeated inappropriate gestures and
comments of a sexual nature in the workplace.
After the investigation, the director of
employee relations received a verbal reprimand, but no other
disciplinary action was taken. Senior management then began an
investigation of Crawford and her department. She and the two other
women were fired.
Crawford sued, claiming protection under Title
VII. But a federal judge and a panel of the Sixth US Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled against her. They said Title VII protects only those
employees who had demonstrated active "opposition" to the alleged
conduct by having already filed a formal discrimination charge with the
company or the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
On Monday, the Supreme Court reversed that decision.
"The
Sixth Circuit thought answering questions fell short of opposition,
taking the view that the [law] demands active, consistent opposing
activities to warrant protection against retaliation," Justice Souter
wrote. "Though these requirements obviously exemplify opposition as
commonly understood, they are not limits of it."
He noted that, for example, many people are
known to oppose capital punishment without writing public letters or
demonstrating in the streets. "We would call it 'opposition' if an
employee took a stand against an employer's discriminatory practices
not by instigating action, but by standing pat, say, by refusing to
follow a supervisor's order to fire a junior worker for discriminatory
reasons."
The central issue in the case was whether
Crawford's actions were sufficient to trigger the protections of the
law. In passing Title VII, Congress outlawed retaliation against
employees who "participate" in a discrimination probe or who "oppose" a
form of discrimination they are encountering.
In its decision, the high court focused on the statute's "opposition" requirement and concluded that Crawford's answering
of the company lawyers' questions qualified as "opposition" under Title VII.
Lawyers
for the Metropolitan Government have argued in the case that Crawford
couldn't claim antiretaliation protection under Title VII because she
hadn't filed a formal charge with the EEOC against the senior manager
or taken other direct action in opposition to the alleged harassment.
The high court disagreed. "Nothing in the
statute requires a freakish rule protecting an employee who reports
discrimination on her own initiative but not one who reports the same
discrimination in the same words when her boss asks a question," Souter
wrote.
Employment lawyers had warned that the Sixth Circuit's view of the law would create a strong incentive for workers to stay
silent in the face of discrimination and retaliation by their bosses. Some say that incentive already existed.
According to one study, 62 percent of state workers who complained of sexual harassment reported that they faced retaliation
in the form of lowered job evaluations, denial of promotions, and being transferred or fired.
More than half of women in the US face some form of workplace sexual harassment, and most of them never report it, according
to the National Women's Law Center.
Souter
recognized the danger in his opinion. "If it were clear law that an
employee who reported discrimination in answering an employer's
questions could be penalized with no remedy, prudent employees would
have good reason to keep quiet," he wrote. "The [Sixth Circuit] appeals
court rule would thus create a real dilemma for any knowledgeable
employee in a hostile work environment."
The Christian Science Monitor
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