Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘harassment law’

$450K settlement after “ride them hard” remark

Two secretaries will share a settlement of around $450,000 from the Atlantic City, N.J. school district and its insurer after filing sexual-harassment charges. Carol Lee and Jennifer Torres sued following

a comment Assistant Superintendent Thomas J. Kirschling made to them and two others in July 2002. At some point mid-month, Kirschling said “I ride them hard and put them away wet.”

The two secretaries sent him a memo saying they were outraged. He later explained and apologized, according to a subsequent memo.

Kirschling was apparently using a rural idiom that means someone is tired or worked hard. The phrase is taken from the need to cool down a horse after strenuous exercise. Only a mistreated horse is stabled while it is still sweating.

After the women complained, the district assigned an outside attorney to investigate, but that probe inadvertently lapsed….

The school board approved the settlement at a meeting last month, although some members considered the amount excessive. “Board member John Devlin said ‘It’s nuts, though, just for that comment.'” (Derek Harper, “Harassment settlement in A.C. totals $450,000”, Press of Atlantic City, Dec. 2; “A.C. school board settles harassment claim for undisclosed sum”, Dec. 1)(& welcome Ramesh Ponnuru, Cathy Young, Michael Fox, Dave Zincavage, Liberty Belles readers).

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Rear Window

An amorous pair of University of Pennsylvania students coupled publicly in front of (and against) a dorm window facing another high-rise dorm; several students with views took photographs, and photographs, as even blurry photographs with three-pixel-long depictions of naughty parts of indeterminate gender do, got passed around by e-mail and ended up on various websites. The University Office of Student Conduct has since charged one of the photographers with sexual harassment, which would go on his permanent record. The next question is what the university will do to the Daily Pennsylvanian, which publishes one of the photos in its article. (Jason Schwartz, “Racy photo lands student in trouble”, Nov. 30 (via Fark); Regina Medina, “Sex-act pix shake Penn”, Philadelphia Daily News, Dec. 1 (via Throwing Things)) .

Update: A commenter informs us that AP reports that Penn has dropped the charges.

Second Update: Dropping charges doesn’t end matters, of course.

[Attorney] Jordan Koko issued a statement on [the photographed student’s] behalf.

“My client is emotionally shattered from this extremely disturbing ordeal. The intense focus on this matter into my client’s identity and image has imposed exceptional emotional and psychological harm,” the statement read.

Koko added that his client’s privacy was invaded in violation of state law and her constitutional rights. He said she “will pursue all her legal options.”

Constitutional rights? Someone is unclear on the concept. (Jason Schwartz, “Photographer escapes charges”, Daily Pennsylvanian, Dec. 2). The FIRE blog is similarly unimpressed with Koko’s reasoning.

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Joan Kennedy Taylor, RIP

A cherished friend, wise adviser and writer/activist of formidable gifts, Joan Kennedy Taylor died on Sunday at age 78 after a long illness. Joan was a key figure in the early history of the Manhattan Institute; her supremely thoughtful work helping Charles Murray to shape and present the argument of Losing Ground, the book that demonstrated the failure of the War on Poverty and revolutionized the welfare debate, rightly became a legend in the policy world. Much of Joan’s own writing sought to advance the themes with which she was above all else associated, namely those of an individualist feminism grounded in Enlightenment values and committed to liberty and specifically to free expression. Her unique book for the Cato Institute and NYU Press, What to Do When You Don’t Want to Call the Cops: A Non-Adversarial Approach to Sexual Harassment, was discussed on this site Nov. 12 and Nov. 13-14, 1999 and Feb. 19-21, 2000.

Joan made an enormous impression on me when I first met her in 1976, having already been a fan of her radio commentaries (she was one of the contributors to CBS radio’s rotating “Spectrum” lineup). When I landed in New York City ten years later it was inevitable that I would seek out her renewed acquaintance. Only much later did I learn about the fascinating life she had led, born to a family of much cultivation (her father was the prominent music critic and composer Deems Taylor), and later close for many years to Ayn Rand. Joan’s preferred methods of persuasion, however, could hardly have stood in more contrast from those of Rand, as may be evident from this profile:

While her views put her at odds with many “mainstream” feminists, Taylor says she prefers to work to build alliances rather than accentuate differences. “New Deal feminists may put more faith in government solutions than would libertarians or classical liberals,” she said in an online discussion (May 7, 1999). “But I think it makes sense to keep the bridges to what is good about the liberal tradition, so that one can call upon our common heritage in the Enlightenment and the American constitutional tradition of individual rights.”

Always reluctant to turn political disagreements into occasions for acrimony and denunciation, Joan raised to a virtual art the search for common ground with others of good will. Other comments: Jesse Walker, Cathy Young, Ed Hudgins (and more) and Wendy McElroy (cross-posted at Point of Law).

P.S. There is now a tribute blog whose first post offers a more detailed account of her life. And now Charles Murray has published, in Reason, a beautifully written appreciation (Nov. 1). More: Chris Sciabarra, Dave Zincavage. And an obituary article by Jeff Riggenbach.

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Toronto schools: Halloween insensitive to witches

From the National Post (Nicholas Kohler, “School board cautions against offending Wiccans”, Oct. 27)(via Stuttaford):

Teachers should forego traditional classroom Halloween celebrations because they are disrespectful of Wiccans and may cause some children to feel excluded, says a Toronto District School Board memo sent to principals and teachers this week.

“Many recently arrived students in our schools share absolutely none of the background cultural knowledge that is necessary to view ‘trick or treating,’ the commercialization of death, the Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs, as ‘fun,’ ” says the memo.

Showing more common sense than the school board, an actual Wiccan priestess interviewed by the newspaper, Nicole Cooper, said she didn’t feel threatened by costumes or trick-or-treating: “If I had children I wouldn’t deprive them of that — it’s a really fun thing to do. It’s engaging in the spirit of the season; it’s exciting for kids,” she said.

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Update: U.K. religious-vilification law

The Blair government, encountering more resistance than it had anticipated, has agreed to soften some of the aspects of the hate-speech bill (Oct. 19, etc.) that are most menacing to freedom of expression:

After suffering a defeat in the [House of] Lords on Tuesday by 260 votes to 111, the Government chose not to oppose an amendment drafted by the Liberal Democrat lawyer Lord Lester with cross-party support. This introduces a number of safeguards.

First, prosecutors would have to prove that the defendant intended to stir up religious hatred; mere likelihood would not be enough. Second, the words or behaviour would have to be threatening rather than merely abusive or insulting. And, crucially, there would be protection for freedom of expression.

Notwithstanding the improvements, the history of such legislation in Australia (see Dec. 3, 2004) suggests that civil libertarians are right to take a stand against the whole thrust of the legislation. “Even if no prosecutions are brought, the Act will inhibit public debate on issues of great importance.” (Joshua Rozenberg, “A legal lesson from Down Under”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 27).

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Sensitivity in the U.K.

“Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.” (“Muslims win toy pigs ban”, The Sun, recent undated; Mark Steyn, “Making a pig’s ear of defending democracy”, DailyTelegraph, Oct. 4; Bookworm Room, Oct. 4). And: “Prison staff have been told to stop wearing Cross of St George tiepins because they could be ‘misinterpreted” as a racist symbol. Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, was ‘concerned” to see a number of officers at Wakefield jail in Yorkshire wearing the tiepins, apparently in support of a cancer charity.” The Cross of St. George is the English national flag. (Philip Johnston, “Prison bans Cross of St George tiepins”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 4).

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“I am not a puppy. Don’t try to train me”

California’s new law requiring all supervisors to experience sensitivity training to prevent sexual harassment (see Oct. 22, 2004) draws an eloquently annoyed response from Mark Kleiman (Sept. 30)(via Cathy Young, who has her own blog now). His follow-up post (Oct. 3) is equally worth reading, and includes a rude acronym for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

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First things first

Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?”

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. . . .

The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for “austere conditions.” Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.

“They’ve got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified,” said a Texas firefighter. “We’re sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven’t been contacted yet.”

How much fear of litigation do you need to let a city burn to ensure no one accuses you of failing to protect against sexual harassment? We might be hearing more stories like this, except FEMA, again with its priorities straight, has told firefighters not to talk to reporters. (Lisa Rosetta, “Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA”, Salt Lake Tribune, Sep. 6 (via Instapundit)).

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