United Parcel declined to comment. Diversity training can also be fodder for outbursts. When Lucent Technologies tried to make its employees more sensitive to gay colleagues, there was an outpouring. Lucent, which says it seeks to balance the right of its employees to express themselves with its other responsibilities, says it prohibits the sending of threatening or harassing messages. Employees and former employees are also using the Internet to make claims of sexual harassment.
Some messages encourage people to come forward with similar tales.
In the ensuing debate over whether he was lying, one person identified two other managers as examples of this behavior. Home Depot said it investigated any claims brought to its attention. In addition to several lawsuits in which offensive e-mail was used as an example of a work environment hostile to blacks or women, there has already been one lawsuit that claimed electronic dialogue alone constituted harassment. A Continental Airlines pilot, Tammy Blakey, sued Continental because of messages sent by other pilots in what was known as the Crew Members Forum, a computer bulletin board. She claimed to have forwarded the offending messages to the company.