Opinion ID: 2996593
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sex Discrimination and Sexual Harassment

Text: We first consider whether Sitar is entitled to pursue her sex discrimination and sexual harassment claims at all. Generally, a plaintiff may not bring claims under Title VII that were not originally included in the charges made to the EEOC. See Vela v. Village of Sauk Village, 218 F.3d 661, 664 (7th Cir. 2000); Babrocky v. Jewel Food Co., 773 F.2d 857, 863 (7th Cir. 1985). This rule serves two purposes: affording the EEOC the opportunity to settle the dispute between the employee and employer, and putting the employer on notice of the charges against it. Id. The only qualification to this principle applies to claims that are “like or reasonably related” to the EEOC charge, and can be reasonably expected to grow out of an EEOC investigation No. 02-2684 9 of the charges. Jenkins v. Blue Cross Mut. Hosp. Ins., Inc., 538 F.2d 164, 167 (7th Cir. 1976) (en banc). Those claims may also be brought. In this case, however, Sitar’s EEOC charge was limited to her retaliation claim. She checked only the retaliation box on the agency’s form and alleged there that her termination was in retaliation for an earlier complaint she had filed about sex discrimination. Normally, retaliation, sex discrimination, and sexual harassment charges are not “like or reasonably related” to one another to permit an EEOC charge of one type of wrong to support a subsequent civil suit for another. See Cheek v. Western and Southern Life Ins. Co., 31 F.3d 497, 501 (7th Cir. 1994) (“Because an employer may discriminate on the basis of sex in numerous ways, a claim of sex discrimination in an EEOC charge and a claim of sex discrimination in a complaint are not alike or reasonably related just because they both assert forms of sex discrimination.”); see also National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 110-15 (2002) (emphasizing the separate nature of claims based on specific discriminatory or retaliatory acts for purposes of the limitations period). Those different claims may be so linked, however, where they are “so related and intertwined in time, people, and substance that to ignore that relationship for a strict and technical application of the rule would subvert the liberal remedial purposes of the Act.” Kristufek v. Hussmann Foodservice Co., 985 F.2d 364, 368 (7th Cir. 1993). Unfortunately for Sitar, this is not the unusual case in which a single retaliation charge will support a broader range of claims. Sitar’s sex discrimination and sexual harassment claims involve a separate set of incidents, conduct, and people, spanning over a period of time prior to the filing of her complaint and more than three months prior to her termination. See Ekanem v. Health and Hosp. Corp. of Marion County, 724 F.2d 563, 573 (7th Cir. 1983); O’Rourke v. Continental Casualty Co., 983 F.2d 94, 97 (7th Cir. 1993); 10 No. 02-2684 Steffen v. Meridian Life Ins. Co., 859 F.2d 534, 545 (7th Cir. 1988). While these earlier facts may provide context and support for Sitar’s later EEOC charge alleging that her termination was retaliatory, the discrimination and harassment charges are not so closely related that we can justify departing from the general rule of distinguishing among different forms of discrimination. See Cheek, 31 F.3d at 500. The fact that both INDOT and the EEOC may have been aware of her earlier, internal complaint about sex discrimination does not change the fact that she chose not to include this issue in her later EEOC charge. We therefore agree with the district court that Sitar’s sex discrimination and sexual harassment claims are procedurally barred and move on to consider her retaliation claim.