University of Georgia

Terry College of Business
 
 

The rule would essentially combine the existing regulations regarding harassment against groups included in Title Vll Or the 1964 Civil Rights Act into one guideline, and leave separate the existing guidelines on sexual harassment because of the special considerations in that area. Title Vll prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, religion and national origin for employers with 15 or more employees.

The California group has persuaded n ore than 40 members of Congress to sign a letter to the chair of EEOC, Tony Gallegos, "urging him to delete religion from the proposed guidelines." They opine that if religion is included in the harassment guidelines, no longer will employees be able to practice their religious tenets in the workplace, despite their constitutional right to do so.

Further, since Playboy-type pinups posted in the workplace are the basis of an action for hostile environment sexual harassment, hanging a crucifix in the workplace would have the same result for religious harassment.

In the 12 yeas that I have worked with Title Vll, including authoring the first textbook on employment law for business, due out July 18, I have never seen anything in the law or court decisionswhich would lead me to believe that the analogy is a fitting one. It is drastically over simplified and dramatized. I have never seen a case in which pinups alone served as a basis for liability for sexual harassment. It is much more involved than that. And by and large, having a crucifix in one's office generally would not carry with it much of the anti-Christian animus that having pin-up6 does with antifemale animus.

In addition, as with any of the harassment guidelines, it is only when the activity directed at the complainant 1- severe and pervasive and unreasonably interferes with his or her ability to perform the job, that it is actionable. A crucifix hanging on the wall would hardly meet that criteria.

However, having a supervisor persistently badger a supervisee to come to his or her church, and having the supervisee turned down for training, promotions or raises if he or she does not, is quite a different story and should be addressed as religious harassment under the EEOC guidelines.

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander, esq. is also an attorney, and a founding partner of BJD Consultants, consultants on employment law issues and a published author.