Opinion ID: 769647
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was Jahnke's harassment severe or pervasive?

Text: 28 A plaintiff may establish a violation of Title VII by proving that the sex discrimination created a hostile or abusive work environment without having to prove a tangible employment action. See Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). In order to establish a hostile work environment claim, an employee must show the following: 1) the employee is a member of a protected class, 2) the employee was subject to unwelcomed sexual harassment, 3) the harassment was based on the employee's sex, 4) the harassment created a hostile work environment, and 5) the employerfailed to take reasonable care to prevent and correct any sexually harassing behavior. See Williams v. General Motors Corp., 187 F.3d 553, 560-61 (6th Cir. 1999). 29 A hostile work environment occurs [w]hen the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment. Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993)(internal quotations and citations omitted). Both an objective and a subjective test must be met: the conduct must be severe or pervasive enough to create an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive and the victim must subjectively regard that environment as abusive. See id. at 21-22. 30 The court must consider the totality of the circumstances when determining whether, objectively, the alleged harassment is sufficiently severe or pervasive to constitute a hostile work environment. See Williams, 187 F.3d at 562. [T]he issue is not whether each incident of harassment standing alone is sufficient to sustain the cause of action in a hostile environment case, but whether--taken together--the reported incidents make out such a case. Id. The work environment as a whole must be considered rather than a focus on individual acts of alleged hostility. See id. at 563. Isolated incidents, however, unless extremely serious, will not amount to discriminatory changes in the terms or conditions of employment. See Morris v. Oldham County Fiscal Court, 201 F.3d 784, 790 (6th Cir. 2000). Appropriate factors for the court to consider when determining whether conduct is severe or pervasive enough to constitute a hostile work environment include the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee's work performance. Harris, 510 U.S. at 23. 31 In considering the alleged incidents of harassment, the district court found several to be nonprobative because they were not based on Bowman's sex. The court found that the 1991 shoulder rubbing incident in Bowman's office was ambiguous and of no evidentiary value absent some other evidence suggesting that it should be considered a harassing act. The court also found the January 9, 1995, confrontation in Jahnke's office and the repeated telephone calls from Jahnke to be nonprobative because Bowman had offered no evidence that those acts constituted harassment on the basis of his sex. The court then considered whether the remaining alleged incidents, considered together, were sufficient to constitute sexual harassment that was severe or pervasive. The court found that the 1992 Christmas party incident, the 1994 whirlpool incident, and the 1994 swimming pool incident were imbued with sufficient sexual flavor to show that Bowman was subjected to uninvited harassment and that the harassment was based upon his status as a member of a protected class but found that the harassment was not severe or pervasive. 32 Non-sexual conduct may be illegally sex-based and properly considered in a hostile environment analysis where it can be shown that but for the employee's sex, he would not have been the object of harassment. See Williams, 187 F.3d at 565. Any unequal treatment of an employee that would not occur but for the employee's gender may, if sufficiently severe or pervasive under the Harris standard, constitute a hostile environment in violation of Title VII. Id. However, Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace; it is directed only at 'discriminat[ion] . . . because of . . . sex.' Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Serv., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 80 (1998) (emphasis in original). The critical issue, Title VII's textindicates, is whether members of one sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex are not exposed. Id. (citation omitted). 33 We agree with the district court that while Bowman recites a litany of perceived slights and abuses, many of the alleged harassing acts cannot be considered in the hostile environment analysis because Bowman has not shown that the alleged harassment was based upon his status as a male. Bowman, while alleging that Jahnke tormented him personally, has not show that the non-sexual harassment had an anti-male bias. In Title VII actions, however, it is important to distinguish between harassment and discriminatory harassment in order to ensure that Title VII does not become a general civility code. Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998) (citation omitted). In Williams, evidence that the plaintiff was ostracized on myriad instances when others were not, combined with gender-specific epithets used, such as slut and fucking women, was sufficient to create an inference that her gender was the motivating impulse for her co-workers' behavior and allowed the non-sexual harassment to be considered in the hostile environment analysis. See Williams, 187 F.3d at 565-66. Unlike the plaintiff in Williams, Bowman has not alleged that Jahnke made a single comment evincing an anti-male bias. Besides a bare and unsupported assertion that some women employees were allowed to engage in work outside the University while he was not, Bowman has not shown that the non-sexual conduct he complains of had anything to do with his gender. While he may have been subject to intimidation, ridicule, and mistreatment, he has not shown that he was treated in a discriminatory manner because of his gender. 34 The only incidents that may arguably be considered in the hostile work environment analysis are the 1991 shoulder rubbing incident, the 1992 Christmas party incident, the 1994 whirlpool incident, the 1994 swimming pool incident, and the 1995 meeting in Jahnke's office. Although we consider more alleged incidents in the analysis than did the district court, we agree with the court's holding that the incidents that may properly be considered are not severe or pervasive and, thus, do not meet the fourth element of the hostile environment analysis. While the allegations are serious, they do not constitute conduct that is pervasive or severe. We note that like Williams, three of the alleged incidents in this case were not merely crude, offensive, and humiliating, but also contained an element of physical invasion. Williams, 187 F.3d at 563. However, the conduct in this case is not nearly as severe or pervasive as the harassment in Williams or in other cases where the court found that the conduct in question was not severe or pervasive enough to constitute a hostile environment. In Williams, there were fifteen separate allegations of sexual harassment over a period of one year. See id. at 559. The allegations included derogatory and profane remarks directed at the plaintiff, sexually explicit comments directed at the plaintiff, offensive comments directed at women in general, denial of plaintiff's overtime, and the exclusion of plaintiff from certain workplace areas. See id. at 559. See also Burnett v. Tyco Corp., 203 F.3d 980, 985 (6th Cir. 2000) (holding that under the totality of the circumstances, a single battery coupled with two merely offensive remarks over a six-month period does not create an issue of material fact as to whether the conduct alleged was sufficiently severe to create a hostile work environment); Morris v. Oldham County Fiscal Court, 201 F.3d 784, 790 (6th Cir. 2000) (holding that simple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents including a sexual advance did not amount to discriminatory changes in the terms and conditions of a plaintiff's employment); Sprague v. Thorn Am., Inc., 129 F.3d 1355, 1366 (10th Cir. 1997) (holding that five incidents of allegedly sexually-orientedoffensive comments during a sixteen-month period were not sufficiently frequent to create liability).