U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Retaliation

On January 26th, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the retaliation clause under Title VII extends to an employee who speaks out about discrimination not on her own initiative, but in answering questions during an employer’s internal investigation.

The court ruled on a case that was on appeal from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that the employee’s conduct wasn’t protected by Title VII.  The case in question is Crawford vs. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee.  Here are facts of the case from the Court’s opinion.

The Metro School District began looking into rumors of sexual harassment by the Metro’s employee relations director, Gene Hughes.  When a Metro human resources officer asked Vicky Crawford, a 30-year Metro employee, whether she had witnessed “inappropriate behavior” on the part of Mr. Hughes, Ms. Crawford described several instances of sexually harassing behavior by Mr. Hughes.  Two other employees also reported being sexually harassed by Mr. Hughes.

Although the Metro took no action against Mr. Hughes, it did fire Ms. Crawford and the two other accusers soon after finishing the investigation, saying in Ms. Crawford’s case that it was for embezzlement.  Ms. Crawford claimed Metro was retaliating for her report of Mr. Hughes' behavior and filed a charge of retaliation with the EEOC.

The Sixth U.S. Court of Appeals had ruled that Title VII did not extend retaliation protection to Ms. Crawford because she did “not claim to have instigated or initiated any complaint prior to her participation in the investigation, nor did she take any further action following the investigation and prior to her firing.”

The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that Ms. Crawford’s participation in the internal investigation was indeed protected opposition of discrimination.

I say it's time to train your managers and supervisors about retaliation and harassment.  Do they understand their responsibilities?  Do they know what is retaliation and harassment?  Contact me to arrange for this training in your workplace.