Paging Sally Satel: Acting New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Codey last week signed into law legislation requiring doctors to receive so-called cultural competency training as a condition of obtaining or renewing their licenses to practice medicine. The measure is apparently the first of its kind, but advocates are pushing similar measures in other states as well. (Shawn Rhea, Camden Courier-Post, Mar. 24). Background: Sally Satel and Jonathan Klick, “Don’t Despair Over Disparities”, Weekly Standard, Mar. 1, 2004, reprinted at Satel’s site.
Posts Tagged ‘harassment law’
Quotable: absence of grace
From a column by Rob Asghar in the Ashland (Ore.) Daily Tidings on lawsuits over offensive remarks in the workplace (“Without a doubt, PC has gone too far”, Nov. 22):
The correlation between litigiousness and gracelessness is no accident. Within religious communities, the term “legalist” denotes a person who gives little grace to others if they transgress even the slightest religious commandment. (This is especially ironic when the religion is supposed to be about grace.)
For our hypersensitive secular society, we too have become legalists who feel that to sue is human and to forgive is a crime. And we are all poorer for this trend.
Office “love contracts”
Continue on the upswing, reports the NLJ. The use of such contracts is “not a majority rule yet, but it’s increasing,” according to April Boyer of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham’s Miami office, while Stephen Tedesco, a partner in the San Francisco office of Littler Mendelson, says he’s “completed hundreds of the contracts for his clients over the past few years”. (Lindsay Fortado, “Workplace ‘Love Contracts’ on the Rise”, National Law Journal, Mar. 3). See Dec. 3-5 and Dec. 31, 1999, May 3, 2000, and Dec. 10, 2001, among other entries on our harassment-law page.
Cosby won’t face criminal charges
And according to Beldar (Feb. 20) the complainant’s lawyers (who naturally are planning to sue the comedian) have been reduced to blowing smoke about a purported prosecutorial conflict of interest that’s nothing of the kind.
“Veteran-status” harassment
Just as legal rules aimed at sparing female and minority workers the risk of a “hostile environment” can lead to the suppression of workplace jokes, banter and expressions of political or religious opinion deemed potentially hurtful to feelings, so the inclusion of “veteran’s status” as a protected category can encourage the elimination of workplace speech that might offend the group in question — which in this case could lead to restricting speech critical of war or the military. Eugene Volokh explains (Feb. 8) and Beldar comments as well (Feb. 8).
Town won’t accept racy calendar proceeds
Since the 1999 sensation over England’s “Ladies of Rylstone”, the fad has spread around the world of charity fundraising calendars displaying the unclothed (but strategically obscured) bodies of middle-aged and elderly townspeople. In Carmel, Calif., however, the city is refusing to accept $40,000 in proceeds from the Carmel Fire Belles calendar, which features local women aged 51 to 84 posing behind firefighting equipment. City attorney Donald Freeman “said that under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, accepting the money could make the city liable for a sexual-harassment lawsuit. He says the city has already received numerous complaints from city workers.” An outside law firm offered the same opinion, Freeman said. (Nicholas Shields, “Fearing Lawsuits Because of Birthday Suits, City Shuns a Gift”, Feb. 7).
Is $8M enough for being accused of sexual assault?
In December, Kevin Lindsey, a public school teacher and principal for thirty years, was arrested and “charged with two counts of child abuse, two counts of second-degree sex offense and one count of third-degree sex offense.” His name, and the allegations that he had abused two students in the late 1970s, made headlines in his community. Three weeks later, the charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence about the girls’ “recovered memories” and everything went back to normal for Mr. Lindsey. Right?
Not quite. Though he has been reinstated as the principal of his school after briefly being reassigned to the district office, one can only imagine the long-term damage done to his reputation. Now he has filed suit against the women, asking for $8 million for “malicious prosecution, defamation and invasion of privacy.” (Sara Neufeld, “Principal files lawsuit against accusers,” Baltimore Sun, Feb. 2).
Suing Santa Claus
“‘When I started doing this years ago, I never even thought about liability,’ Nevada [Victor Nevada, 61, a professional Santa Claus in Calgary, Canada] says. ‘But Santas have a pretty good chance of getting sued. You got the obvious things: You drop a child on its head. Then there’s Santa saying the wrong thing?. I had a Santa working for me a couple years ago; he had a girl on his knee, and he commented, “You have nice eyes and nice hair.” She claimed sexual harassment.'” (J.R. Moehringer, “Ho! Ho! Is More Like Uh-Oh”, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23).
Inmate to be freed after 25 years
“The Ohio Parole Board has decided a Cleveland-area man has spent the last 25 years behind bars for a crime he may not have committed and voted unanimously for his release.” Gary Reece was convicted of rape in 1980 on the accusation of a neighbor despite his denials and a lack of any evidence that he had ever been in the accuser’s apartment. In the years since then much evidence has accumulated casting doubt on the credibility of his accuser, Kimberly Croft. In fact, “on one television news program, [Croft] claimed that Gary Reece actually killed her during the attack in question, but that ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ brought her back to life,'” according to a brief filed with the parole board by law students working with the Ohio Innocence Project. (Roy Wood, “UC law students convince board: Man is innocent”, Cincinnati Post, Dec. 18; “Imprisoned on a shaky story”, (editorial), Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec. 5).
Blonds not protected class
Not sure exactly how this one escaped our notice last year: a Pennsylvania federal judge has ruled (or, really, observed) that whatever other advantages blonds may enjoy, they are not a protected class under Title VII federal employment discrimination law. Brigitte Shramban had sued Aetna claiming that her boss had made various tasteless and disparaging remarks which belittled her on account of her sex, race, national origin, religion and blondness. Aside from noting that the last-named flower could not properly be included in the Title VII bouquet, the judge dismissed the case as a whole because the improper remarks were not sufficiently severe, pervasive, or bothersome to a reasonable listener. (Shannon P. Duffy, “Offensive Behavior Not Necessarily Harassment”, The Legal Intelligencer, May 23, 2003). It seems doubtful that a case could be made out that discrimination against those with fair tresses operates as a “proxy” for bias against those of certain ethnic origins; thanks to modern technology, blonds (as the Census says of Hispanics) “may be of any race”.