Paging Elizabeth Wurtzel! [Daniel Schwartz] More: Bainbridge.
Posts Tagged ‘hostile environment’
A national discussion about race “around water coolers”?
Great way to get the employer sued, Mr. President [Volokh, with much interesting discussion in the comments section about the workings of “hostile-environment” law]
May 27 roundup
- Third Circuit drop-kicks “spygate” football-fan class action against New England Patriots [Cal Civil Justice, Russell Jackson, earlier]
- “Watch Those ‘Jury Duty’ Tweets, People” [Lowering the Bar]
- Ninth Circuit Kozinski-O’Connor-Ikuta panel rules for free speech in big “hostile environment” workplace-discrimination case [Volokh first, second and third posts; Rodriguez v. Maricopa County Community College Dist., PDF]
- “Accused Catholic priests left in legal limbo” [Religion News Service/National Catholic Reporter]
- Suit against big plaintiff’s law firm: “Ex-Baron & Budd Lawyer Awarded $8.8M” [ABA Journal, Texas Lawyer, Above the Law]
- Keep politics out of doings of New Jersey Supreme Court? Cue riotous laughter [Paul Mulshine, Star-Ledger via Dan Pero]
- Report: rare genuinely-funny ads from injury law firm have boosted client leads 25% [Above the Law, earlier here and here]
- Thanks to law bloggers Byron Stier and Eric Turkewitz for joining others in noting my move to Cato
even if Wikipedia still hasn’t(and now Wikipedia has too).
The fatal workplace joke
Eugene Volokh on Reason.tv
Great interview with the prolific and influential UCLA law professor (and founder of the Volokh Conspiracy blog) in which he talks about the Bill of Rights, the “hostile environment” menace to free speech, why we should not necessarily expect judges to strike down bad laws, concealed carry and the gun control issue, and the nannyism potential in tort law (& welcome Erin Miller, SCOTUSBlog readers).
Ban blonde jokes in workplace, but allow lawyer jokes
At least that’s the advice one lawyer gave in a speech to the annual convention of SHRM, the human resources managers’ group. [HR Daily Advisor citing Jonathan Segal of Duane Morris, via Hyman]
Co-workers listened to raunchy radio programs, cont’d
The Eleventh Circuit has agreed to reconsider its decision last year allowing an offended employee to sue for sexual harassment over crude sexual language not directed at her, among the sources of which was a Birmingham morning talk show. [CEI “Open Market”, Fulton County Daily Report, Eugene Volokh; our earlier report]
ConcurOp “cyberspeech as tort” symposium, cont’d
That lawprof chatfest promoting the idea of wider rights to sue over online speech has provoked a bit of a furor; see addenda to our earlier post as well as continuing coverage at Scott Greenfield’s site. Good! Better to have a controversy now than wait until after some academic consensus has already hardened around a MacKinnonite “of course we need to let people sue more widely over speech, or else women’s voices will be silenced” position. Update March 2010: David Kopel covers at Volokh.
The episode has also helped spin off a second, tangential controversy taking the form of a new round in the ongoing dispute between some “practical” law bloggers and their counterparts in legal academia, on which see Greenfield and Marc John Randazza.
March 31 roundup
- Litigation over high-tech products is rife, but major benefits for consumers can be hard to discern [Low End Mac]
- “United settles with female ex-pilot who found p0rn in cockpits” [Obscure Store]
- California suit charges negligent “laying on of hands” at church service [Lowering the Bar]
- UN resolution against “defamation of religion” imperils free speech [Paula Schriefer, Freedom House/CSM, Steyn/NR “Corner”, National Secular Society (U.K.), Ilya Somin @ Volokh
- DivorceNetwork.com, social networking for those caught up in family law battles? [Ambrogi, Legal BlogWatch]
- Prosecutors behaving badly in Wayne County (Mich.), Miami, Santa Clara County [Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- After nine years, the notorious Bill Lerach California-unfair-competition-law suit against Kwikset (over several screws from Taiwan in a lock marked “Made in America”) finally winds down [California Civil Justice, earlier]
- Oklahoma AG Drew Edmondson to poultry companies: my pals will bankrupt you with massive verdicts unless you settle [Rizo/Legal NewsLine; more]
Harassment — by reading a book
Readers may recall the remarkable case last year in which student employee Keith John Sampson was hauled up on university disciplinary charges at IUPUI (Indiana University) for supposed racial harassment because a co-worker had observed him reading a book about the historical struggle against the Klan. A successful campaign ensued (led by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) to get the discipline reversed and an apology issued. Now filmmaker Andrew Marcus has produced a short documentary about the incident, viewable at FIRE’s site.