Opinion ID: 783149
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Caltech's Reasonable Efforts to Prevent and Correct Harassment

Text: 57 Holly D. first asserts that Caltech did not take reasonable care in the design of its anti-harassment policy. To support this contention, she offers the expert opinion of Professor Brian Kleiner, whose declaration states that he would testify at trial that an effective sexual harassment program could reasonably include each of six components not offered by Caltech—such as peer review of supervisors and mandatory sexual harassment training for employees. Professor Kleiner also states that he would testify that an employer could reasonably communicate a sexual harassment policy by each of nine means not employed by Caltech, including role-playing sessions and training videos. 58 The legal standard for evaluating an employer's efforts to prevent and correct harassment, however, is not whether any additional steps or measures would have been reasonable if employed, but whether the employer's actions as a whole established a reasonable mechanism for prevention and correction. See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 765, 118 S.Ct. 2257. Caltech had promulgated a written policy which defined prohibited behavior, identified contact personnel, and established procedures to investigate and resolve any claims. It made this policy available in several publications, at least one of which Holly D. received in 1996, when she began working with Professor Wiggins. Caltech also conducted periodic training on sexual harassment, which it publicized to staff and faculty by email, including at least one email sent in 1998 during the period when Holly D. was allegedly being harassed. Holly D. testified that she knew about this training, and indeed, that she knew that Wiggins's behavior constituted sexual harassment. On this record, Professor Kleiner's expert testimony does not sufficiently undermine Caltech's written anti-harassment policy, which on its face is reasonable. 59 Holly D. next contends that even if Caltech's policy was facially reasonable, it was unreasonably implemented, and that Caltech failed promptly to correct harassment when it occurred. She charges, for example, that Caltech gave unfair deference to its faculty such that no administrative employee could expect to prevail on a harassment charge. However, she has offered absolutely no evidence to support this allegation. 22 When Caltech learned about Holly D.'s allegations for the first time in June 1999 as the result of her filing a claim with the EEOC, it promptly convened an investigatory committee, which impartially interviewed every witness suggested by either Holly D. or Wiggins. At first, the investigatory committee found insufficient evidence of harassment, but nevertheless recommended that Holly D. be transferred to work for a female professor in a different department and location and that Wiggins be reminded of Caltech's harassment policy. Moreover, although post complaint conduct will not exonerate a party at fault, we note that once Caltech gained access to the physical evidence belying Wiggins's assertion that no sexual contact had occurred — evidence that Holly D. declined to provide to the investigating committee — Wiggins was immediately asked for his resignation and promptly resigned. 60 Professor Kleiner attacks these efforts as seriously flawed, by contending that during its initial investigation, Caltech should have interviewed Professor Wiggins's former secretary, inspected Professor Wiggins's computer for bookmarks to pornographic websites, and examined Professor Wiggins's intimate areas to corroborate Holly D.'s alleged knowledge of his anatomy. 23 Even were we to assume that all of these additional steps were advisable, Caltech's failure to pursue all possible leads does not undermine the substantial showing in this case that its investigation was, in toto, both prompt and reasonable. On the evidence presented, therefore, we find that Holly D. has raised no genuine issue of material fact as to whether Caltech exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct sexual harassment. 61