An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 7 - Recognizing And Preventing Harassment, Discrimination And Retaliation

Any employee who has any level of supervisory discretion, as opposed to routine clerical duties, is a “supervisor” as defined in the Fair Employment and Housing Act. 1016

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While compliance with these steps may not completely insulate a school from liability for unlawful harassment, it will help to prevent unlawful harassment from occurring and possibly insulate the school from tort liability as well as damages. 1017 In 2017, the Governor signed SB 396, which amends Government Code section 12950.1 to include the requirement that this training must include training on the issues of gender identity and gender expression, including examples of harassment based on those protected categories. 1018 The following additional measures may also deter unlawful discrimination, harassment, and retaliation:

 Promote equal employment opportunity at all levels of the workplace;  Treat all people on their individual merits, without regard to their sex, race, age, or other protected status;  Ensure that the visual, verbal, and physical aspects of the work site do not contain indicators of stereotyping based on any protected classifications;  Do not allow joking or rumors based on physical attributes or any other basis that could relate to a protected status;  Do not allow innuendo, gossip, or cliques, which isolate individuals by their protected status;  Be sensitive to supervisor/subordinate personal relationships which could adversely impact the good judgment and neutrality of the supervisor;  When monitoring the attire of employees, be sure to monitor the attire of both genders;  Adopt and distribute to all personnel an effective policy against discrimination, harassment and retaliation that clearly sets forth the school’s complaint procedures, and re-distribute that policy on a regular basis;  Regularly train all employees, particularly supervisors and managers, on how to avoid discrimination, harassment, and retaliation;  Train supervisors and managers on appropriate procedures to follow when an employee reports discrimination, harassment, and retaliation (see Compendium for a supervisor’s checklist);  Investigate promptly all complaints of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation;  Take corrective action promptly, if needed, after each investigation of a complaint; and

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 246