Opinion ID: 70747
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: to fail or refuse to hire or discharge any

Text: individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any 1 I am confused by the court's use of the conjunction and. To me, because the City is a corporation and must act through its agents, actual knowledge must be imputed knowledge. That is, information that an agent obtains in discharging his or her duties is imputed by operation of law to the corporation, thus giving the corporation actual knowledge of what the agent learned. Hence, when referring to a corporation, imputed knowledge is actual knowledge. I am also confused by the court's conclusion that the City would be liable if it knew or should have known of the sexual harassment in question. This implies that the City could be held liable for simple negligence. A Title VII claimant, however, must establish that the employer intended the harassment. I believe that the court, in using this knew or should have known language, means that if a trier of fact could conclude from the evidence that the agent responsible for ensuring order in the workplace (including the prevention of severe and pervasive sexual harassment) knew that an employee was being subjected to a hostile environment, that knowledge would constitute the employer's knowledge. individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). Title VII prohibits as a discriminatory condition of employment the employer's creation of an abusive working environment characterized by severe and pervasive sexual harassment. Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986). A discriminatorily abusive work environment ... can and often will detract from employees' job performance, discourage employees from remaining on the job, or keep them from advancing in their careers. Harris v. Forklift Systems, 510 U.S. 17, 22, 114 S.Ct. 367, 370-71, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993). [D]iscriminatory conduct ... so severe or pervasive that it create[s] a work environment abusive to employees because of their ... gender ... offends Title VII's broad rule of workplace equality. Id., 510 U.S. at 22, 114 S.Ct. at 371. For obvious reasons, most employers strive to maintain order in the workplace. Order enhances efficiency. For employers in the private sector, order enhances the potential for profit. For public employers, order enhances the image of officials who must stand for re-election and bureaucrats who report to them and seek job security. Disorder, the converse of order, prevents the workplace from operating at optimal efficiency. Sexual harassment that is severe and pervasive constitutes disorder. Hence, employers have an extra-legal incentive to prevent it. Title VII, because of the liability and associated costs it may impose, provides employers with an added, legal incentive to prevent this form of disorder. There is always someone in charge of any workplace. Depending on the character of the business or the number of employees in the workplace, the designation of the person in charge may be explicit. Alternatively, the designation may be tacit. Unless the employer designates someone other than the person in charge of the workplace as the one responsible for maintaining order, I would hold that the person in charge of the workplace has the responsibility of preventing severe and pervasive sexual harassment. 2 I would hold further that if the employer delegates to someone else the duty of policing the workplace for sexual harassment, the employer must make the designation unambiguously known to those laboring in the workplace; otherwise the designation would have no legal, or practical, effect.