An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 7 - Recognizing And Preventing Harassment, Discrimination And Retaliation

 Whether there is a close connection between a discussion about job or academic benefits and a request for sexual favors. 933 Agusty-Reyes v. Department of Education 934 A teacher who was repeatedly sexually harassed by her supervisor could proceed to trial under Title VII. After the teacher denied the supervisor’s sexual advances, the supervisor delayed evaluating her and ultimately gave her a poor evaluation to prevent her receipt of tenure.

At least one court has applied the quid pro quo harassment analysis to religion. The court held that religious quid pro quo harassment could be found to occur if an employee is required or coerced to abandon, alter, or adopt a religious practice as a condition of the job, a job benefit, or the absence of a job detriment. 935 Venters v. City of Delphi 936 Employee claimed she was terminated because she did not share her

supervisor’s religious beliefs. The Seventh Circuit found that the employee stated a claim for religious harassment where her supervisor described the police station as “God’s house” and that to work in that house, she had to be spiritually whole, which required her to be “saved.” The supervisor also told the employee that if she was unwilling to play by “God’s rules,” and if she did not choose “God’s way” over “Satan’s way,” she would lose her job. The supervisor also told the employee that he had concluded she was leading a sinful life, and thus, he could not permit the “evil spirit that had taken [her] soul” to continue inhabiting the police department.

C. B ULLYING A ND A BUSIVE C ONDUCT

1. I NTRODUCTION Workplace bullying has recently received greater media and legislative attention as a potentially growing area of concern in the workplace, state- and nationwide. Proponents of anti-bullying legislation and employee advocates for “healthy workplaces” point to the potential hidden costs to employers in low morale, higher rates of absenteeism, and lower productivity in the workplace. Workplace bullying is not illegal, but in September 2014, the California Legislature passed a law requiring that mandatory harassment prevention training must also include a component on prevention of “abusive conduct,” beginning January 1, 2015. 937 That law, which amended Government Code section 12950.1, defines abusive conduct as conduct of an employee or employees in the workplace, undertaken with malice, that is unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests, and that a reasonable person would find hostile or offensive. 938 Statutorily listed examples of abusive conduct include: repeated verbal abuse, derogatory remarks, insults, epithets, verbal or physical conduct that reasonably appears threatening, intimidating, or humiliating, or sabotage of another’s work performance. 939

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