One to Watch

This week the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a case whose outcome may determine whether workers cooperate with internal investigations of sexual harassment in the workplace or keep quiet, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

The case involves Vicky Crawford, a longtime employee of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn., who agreed to be interviewed by her employer during an informal probe into allegations that the director of employee relations had sexually harassed female employees. (One of the director’s duties was to investigate sexual-harassment complaints.)

The Monitor reports that …

Ms. 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 that if she told the truth she might lose her job. Nonetheless, she became 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 was given a verbal reprimand, but no other disciplinary action was taken. Senior management then began an investigation of Crawford and her department. She and the other two women were fired.

Crawford sued, of course, claiming that her employer had retaliated against her for speaking up, thereby violating Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans employee discrimination on the basis of race or sex and also protects those who oppose it. The case, however, was tossed out by a federal judge, a decision that was later upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on the grounds that she “hadn’t filed a formal discrimination or sexual harassment charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or taken other direct action in opposition to the alleged harassment,” and therefore was ineligible for protection under Title VII, the Monitor reports.

Given what’s at stake here — workers’ willingness to expose discrimination and harassment and participate in internal investigations, not to mention employers’ ability to address such grievances — academics and nonacademics alike should keep an eye on this case.

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