Is your city safe? The question might seem straightforward, but for the people of Florence, the answer might be more complex than it seems. Sex discrimination is not only illegal but it has been proven to negatively affect public safety. Sarah Glenn, a city employee, alleges that the City of Florence has been systematically violating state and federal civil rights laws, even retaliating for exercising her First Amendment rights.
Glenn’s allegations include being treated less favorably than her male counterparts, being assigned menial tasks, and expressing genuine safety concerns that were ignored. The city attempted to dismiss Glenn’s First Amendment claim, arguing that her disclosures were not of public concern and could disrupt the workplace. However, a statement from US District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer suggests otherwise. He denied this motion, emphasizing that Glenn’s claims can’t simply be bulldozed as personal grievances.
The City is now seeking a summary judgment to resolve the First Amendment claim in their favor and is hoping to avoid a trial. However, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first litigation against the City of Florence, as there’ve been multiple lawsuits, including allegations of misconduct by the former city manager.
This case reveals the dark side of sex discrimination. It obstructs justice, inhibits the free flow of information, and potentially risks public safety. It’s time to recognize these issues. Stand with Sarah Glenn. Stand up for equal rights and public safety.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been a reliable shield for many employees in the past and continues to hold its significance in our society today. It is a federal law that serves as a powerful weapon against sex discrimination, especially for mothers who are often subject to baseless stereotypes in the workplace.
An example that stands out is the recent case lodged against Walmart by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). As the case revealed, a dedicated employee was denied a well-deserved promotion to a department manager position due to sex stereotypes. The reasons for overlooking her promotion revolved around her young children, implying that she may not be as committed or dedicated to advancing her career. Such stereotypes are exactly what Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 aims to fight against.
“Discriminating against a woman because of stereotypes about working mothers is sex discrimination, plain and simple,” said Gregory Gochanour, the regional attorney for the EEOC’s Chicago District Office. “Women with children deserve the opportunity to be judged fairly in the workplace based on their qualifications and abilities, not on assumptions about their commitment to their careers.”
This landmark legislation not only prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals on the basis of sex, but also race, color, religion, and national origin. The law has been instrumental in protecting mothers from facing discrimination in the workplace. It ensures that they are given equal opportunities for recruitment, hiring, promotion and training.
The settlement follows an earlier ruling by the court rejecting Walmart’s motion to end the case without a trial. The court’s decision on the case highlighted that a promotion decision taken based on sex stereotypes was unjust. The courts referenced a U.S. Supreme Court case that unraveled the harmful sex stereotype presumption — that women are primarily mothers and secondarily workers. This presumption was deemed impermissible and countered the rights provided through Title VII.
The outcome of this lawsuit served as another win for Title VII, with Walmart agreeing to pay a sizable compensation of $60,000 to the aggrieved employee. Further, in an effort to prevent future discrimination, they committed to providing training that focuses on federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination and to report any further complaints to the EEOC.
This case serves as a clear reminder of how vital Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is in ensuring a fair and non-discriminatory playing field for mothers. It eradicates stereotypes, ensuring women are acknowledged for their skills, qualifications, and abilities rather than unfairly judged based on their circumstances. Discrimination against women, particularly rooted in stereotypes of working mothers, is regarded as sex discrimination, and this law serves as a bulwark against it.
Not Just a Game: Former Cal State University Northridge coach files lawsuit against the school, claiming wrongful termination following exposé on dubious recruiting tactics!
In recent news, an alarming case has surfaced involving the former women’s soccer coach at Cal State University Northridge, Keith Andrew West, who is now taking legal action against the school. The case highlights some of the endemic issues that are often overlooked in higher education, such as illegal discrimination, harassment, unethical donations for scholarships, and whistleblower retaliation.
Athletic Director, Brandon Martin instructed West to terminate one of his male assistant coaches to make room for a female assistant coach, the suit alleges.
The crux of West’s lawsuit lies in whistleblower retaliation, a serious violation of employee rights that often go unreported due to fear of reprisals. In this situation, West claims to have fallen victim to retaliation following his exposure of alleged impropriety within the university’s department.
In addition to this, West reports incidents of discrimination and harassment. He points out the university’s resistance to renewing his contract, expressing an intention to replace him with a female. This seeming gender-bias raises questions about illegal discrimination within hiring and contracting practices.
“The president wants a female in your position.”
Further adding to the university’s list of alleged violations, West reveals he was pressured to use his recruitment abilities to target a potential student athlete based on their potential financial contributions to the school. This brings to light the questionable practice of procuring donations for scholarships, a practice that deeply undermines the merit-based principle that should ideally govern academic scholarships.
In the wake of these accusations, West was subjected to an investigation and subsequent termination, causing him considerable losses, both financial and emotional. His case illuminating potential gross abuses of power and violations of both employment and educational law that should not be dismissed or ignored.
As this case unfolds, it serves as an important reminder of the dire need for transparency, fairness, and ethical practices in higher institutions. We must ensure that illegal discrimination, harassment, and whistleblower retaliation are not swept under the rug, and we must question practices like donations for scholarships that compromise the integrity of higher education.
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Settles Federal Charges Female Employee Was Sexually Harassed, Then Transferred and Denied Promotional Opportunity Because She Complained
Bojangles’ Restaurants, Inc., a Delaware corporation operating in Greensboro, North Carolina, has been ordered to pay $20,000.00 and provide other relief as part of a settlement agreement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to resolve a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit.
The EEOC’s lawsuit alleges that a female team member at a Bojangles fast food restaurant in Greensboro was subjected to severe sexual harassment from March 2020 to June 2020 by the restaurant’s general manager, who made numerous sexual remarks and inappropriately touched and grabbed her. The employee was then denied the opportunity to participate in a management training program and was transferred to a different location as retaliation after complaining about the general manager’s conduct.
This type of alleged behavior is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace and prohibits retaliation against employees who oppose sexual harassment.
Employees have a right to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers cannot tolerate such conduct or allow managers to retaliate against employees for reporting the harassment.
The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Bojangles’ Restaurants, Inc., Civil Action No.: 1:22-cv-00739) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its voluntary conciliation process.
As part of the two-year consent decree, which applies to specific restaurants, Bojangles is required to pay $20,000.00 in damages to the affected employee, train managers and employees on sexual harassment, refrain from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, including in the administration of management training programs, and refrain from retaliating against employees who complain of sexual harassment.
Bojangles has also agreed not to rehire the offending manager. “Employees have a right to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace,” said Melinda C. Dugas, regional attorney for the Charlotte District. “Employers cannot tolerate such conduct or allow managers to retaliate against employees for reporting the harassment.”
Hundreds Allege Sex Harassment, Discrimination at Kay and Jared Jewelry Company
Kristin Henry, a former Sterling employee, is seen in her apartment in Sanford, Fla. Henry says she was 22 when a district manager tried to kiss and touch her. After reporting the incident, she says, she was falsely accused of theft and fired. (Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post)
Hundreds of former employees of Sterling Jewelers, the multibillion-dollar conglomerate behind Jared the Galleria of Jewelry and Kay Jewelers, claim that its chief executive and other company leaders presided over a corporate culture that fostered rampant sexual harassment and discrimination, according to arbitration documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Declarations from roughly 250 women and men who worked at Sterling, filed as part of a private class-action arbitration case, allege that female employees at the company throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were routinely groped, demeaned, and urged to sexually cater to their bosses to stay employed. Sterling disputes the allegations.
The arbitration was first filed in 2008 by more than a dozen women who accused the company of widespread gender discrimination. The class-action case, still unresolved, now includes 69,000 women who are current and former employees of Sterling, which operates about 1,500 stores across the country.
Statements allege that top male managers, some at the company’s headquarters near Akron, Ohio, dispatched scouting parties to stores to find female employees they wanted to sleep with, laughed about women’s bodies in the workplace, and pushed female subordinates into sex by pledging better jobs, higher pay or protection from punishment.
Though women made up a large part of Sterling’s sales force, many said they felt they had little recourse with their mostly male management. Sanya Douglas, a Kay sales associate and manager in New York between 2003 and 2008, said a manager even had a saying for male leaders coaxing women into sexual favors to advance their careers, calling it “going to the big stage.”
“If you didn’t do what he wanted with him,” she said in the 2012 sworn statement, “you wouldn’t get your (preferred) store or raise.”
Not all of the 69,000 class members are alleging sexual impropriety. Many are accusing Sterling of wage violations, arguing women were systematically paid less than men and passed over for promotions given to less experienced male colleagues.
Sterling, like other U.S. companies, requires all workers to waive their right to bring any employment-related disputes against their employer in public courts. Instead, complaints must be decided in arbitration — a private, quasi-legal system where cases are guaranteed little transparency.
Signet Jewelers, the parent company of Sterling, has its headquarters in Fairlawn, Ohio. (Dustin Franz for The Washington Post)
More than 1,300 pages of sworn statements were released Sunday and feature company-approved redactions that obscure the names of managers and executives accused of harassment or abuse. But a memorandum by the employees’ attorneys supporting their motion for class certification, filed in 2013, revealed that top executives including Mark Light, now chief executive of Sterling’s parent company, Signet Jewelers, were among those accused of having sex with female employees and promoting women based upon how they responded to sexual demands.
Mark Light, seen June 15, 2016, in New York, is chief executive of Signet Jewelers, Sterling’s parent company. A memo filed in 2013 as part of the case says that top executives including Light were among those accused of having sex with female employees and promoting women based on how they responded to sexual demands. (Chris Goodney/Bloomberg News)
Many of the most striking allegations stem from the company’s annual managers meetings, which former employees described as a boozy, no-spouses-allowed “sex-fest” where attendance was mandatory and women were aggressively pursued, grabbed, and harassed.
Multiple witnesses told attorneys that they saw Light “being entertained” as he watched and joined nude and partially undressed female employees in a swimming pool, according to the 2013 memorandum.
Routine sexual “preying” at company events “was done out in the open and appeared to be encouraged, or at least condoned, by the company,” Melissa Corey, a manager of Sterling stores in Massachusetts and Florida between 2002 and 2008, said in her declaration.
Ellen Contaldi, a Sterling manager in Massachusetts between 1994 and 2008, said in her declaration that male executives “prowled around the (resort) like dogs that were let out of their cage and there was no one to protect the female managers from them.”
“I didn’t like being alone, anywhere. I used to dread going” to the meetings, Contaldi told The Post in an interview. “If you were even remotely attractive or outgoing, which most salespeople are, you were meat, being shopped.”
“It was like nobody knew right from wrong, and there was nobody trying to show anybody right from wrong,” Contaldi added. “There was no discipline. There was no consequence. You were on your own.”
Former employees who sought help or reported abuse through an internal hotline alleged in their declarations that they were verbally attacked or terminated. Kristin Henry, a five-year Sterling employee who said she was 22 when an older district manager tried to kiss and touch her at a managers event, told The Post she was falsely accused of theft and quickly fired after reporting his advances to superiors at Sterling.
“They’re still hiring younger women, and I worry about those women,” Kristin Henry said. (Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post)
The case, Jock et al. v. Sterling Jewelers, was filed before the American Arbitration Association, one of the nation’s largest arbitration organizations. Kathleen A. Roberts, the case’s arbitrator, and a retired federal magistrate is forbidden by association rules from speaking with the media. Like other arbitrations, the case before Roberts is conducted in private and is legally binding. While arbitrator decisions are appealable, there are very limited grounds on which decisions can be overturned. The confidential nature of the case has made it difficult to determine why it has taken so long to resolve.
In a 2015 decision to grant class-action status to the women, Roberts wrote that the testimony includes references to “soliciting sexual relations with women (sometimes as a quid pro quo for employment benefits), and creating an environment at often-mandatory Company events in which women are expected to undress publicly, accede to sexual overtures and refrain from complaining about the treatment to which they have been subjected.”
“For the most part Sterling has not sought to refute this evidence,” Roberts wrote. Instead, she wrote, “Sterling argues that it is inadmissible, irrelevant and insufficient to establish a corporate culture that demeans women.”
The case could deeply tarnish a business that sells billions of dollars worth of jewelry a year through romance-centered marketing campaigns such as “Every Kiss Begins with Kay.” Signet told shareholders in an annual report last year that it would have to “pay substantial damages” if it lost the case.
Sterling’s mall outlets and storefronts account for a large chunk of America’s jewelry market, as well as more than 18,000 jobs across all 50 states. Its parent company, Signet, which is domiciled in Bermuda but headquartered in Ohio, is the world’s largest retailer of diamond jewelry, selling more than $6 billion of jewelry, watches, and services in 2015, company filings show.
Joseph M. Sellers, a partner at the Cohen Milstein law firm and lead counsel for the case, told The Post in an interview that the former employees’ statements provide “breathtaking evidence of ways in which women were mistreated in the workplace.”
“It was terribly demeaning to them as women,” Sellers said, “not just because they themselves were mistreated but because they saw how their co-workers were treated as sexual objects.”
‘Backed into a corner’
When Heather Ballou left her job at a small jewelry store and moved to a Kay retail outlet in Pensacola, Fla., in 2000, she believed she had made the right move to advance her young career. Sterling seemed to offer high standards, a professional atmosphere, and managers willing to groom and mentor new employees, Ballou, a class member in the arbitration, said in an interview with The Post.
As she worked her way up to store manager, though, she said, she became increasingly disturbed at the frequency of sexual harassment from the company’s crude “boys club.” At a managers meeting in 2005, a district manager promised to help transfer her to a better store if she had sex with him, she said in her sworn statement. That night, she did, believing she was “backed into a corner” and had no other way to advance.
“Looking back, I can’t believe I did some of the things I had to do,” Ballou, 41, told The Post, adding that in the moment she thought: “You suck it up and do what you have to do for your family. You need this job.”
Heather Ballou, seen in Gulf Breeze, Fla., said while she was at a managers meeting in 2005, a district manager promised to help transfer her to a better store if she had sex with him. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Ballou attended four of Sterling’s multi-day managers meetings, where attendance was mandatory for managers at company stores nationwide. The events, which were mostly held in Orlando, included daytime work seminars but were infamous for their wild parties at night, employees said. It was common practice, former employees said, for executives and high-level managers to ply subordinates with alcohol.
One night, Ballou told The Post, she saw a top executive watching as female managers in varying stages of undress splashed in a hotel pool. “He had a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, just taking it all in, like, ‘I am the king and this is my harem,’ ” she told The Post. She was prevented by her attorneys from naming which executive was involved, because of the condition of the arbitration documents’ release. The 2013 class-action motion states Light took part in a pool-related incident similar to the one Ballou described.
Henry, who attended the 2005 meeting, said she was retrieving her shawl from a hotel room when a male district manager who was her father’s age, and whom she had been told to treat like a mentor, forcibly tried to kiss and touch her. Stunned, she left immediately afterward and called her parents for advice.
“I was so embarrassed,” she told The Post. “I was afraid of what would happen next, how I would be treated if it was something he would tell other employees about.”
A few days later, she called an internal hotline to report the encounter, believing her identity would be protected. But within days of her report, a regional boss visited her store for two days, interviewed her co-workers, and reviewed surveillance video before accusing her of stealing a gold necklace and $100 in cash. She told The Post she showed the boss evidence that she had not stolen anything, but Sterling fired her, a few days before she was set to receive an annual commission payment worth roughly $30,000, she alleged.
Because she was fired and accused of theft, she told The Post, that she was unable to find a job at another jewelry store. Now 34, she works as a nurse in Florida.
“Friends to this day ask: What ever happened to that job? And it’s one of those situations: Do I tell the truth? Or do I say I just moved on, to save myself the embarrassment?” she told The Post. Seeing Kay commercials, she said, continues to unnerve her.
“They’re still hiring younger women, and I worry about those women,” she told The Post. “I worry about what might happen to them.”
“I can’t even go into a Kay anymore. It just turns my stomach,” says Ballou, who now works as an office manager. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Julia Highfill, a nine-year Sterling manager in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, said in her sworn statement that the company “did not have an effective or serious mechanism by which female employees could complain about their mistreatment.” After calling the company to report that a district manager had arrived to work late and reeking of alcohol, she alleged that he called soon after to warn her against calling again. He told her, “Anything you say, I’m going to know,” she recalled in an interview.
Men who are not part of the class also filed sworn statements alleging Sterling was a hostile workplace for women. Richard Sumen, who worked for Sterling in Ohio from 1992 until 2005, said in his declaration that a group of managers and officers are commonly known as the “good ole boys” was infamous for “protecting and promoting their friends, and wild escapades of sex, drugs, excessive drinking and womanizing.” He recalled one former Ohio-based executive saying, “Why pay women more when they just get pregnant and have families?”
In his sworn statement, Sumen also recounted an incident at corporate headquarters in which an executive pointed to a female secretary and asked a district manager, “Are you doing her?” The secretary looked visibly uncomfortable, Sumen said, but the executive said again, louder, “I want to f—ing know if you are f—ing doing her.”
Sumen told The Post that he remained troubled by what he called Sterling’s discriminatory corporate climate. He wrote in his 2008 declaration, “This culture of sexism and womanizing was so prevalent that female management employees were pressured to acquiesce and participate.”
Like ‘an abusive relationship’
This culture seemingly arose in a company whose sales force was mostly women. More than 68 percent of Sterling’s store managers are women, the company told The Post. Three of Signet’s 10 executive officers are women. A job-recruitment video calls Sterling “your place to shine” and promises an “exciting and fulfilling career.”
Light was made Sterling’s chief executive in 2006 and presided over an eight-year growth streak during which the company’s sales more than tripled. Light, now 54 and chief executive of Signet, earned about $7.4 million in salary, stock, and bonuses in fiscal 2016, up from $2.4 million in 2014, company filings show.
Signet, the parent company of Sterling, Zales, and other jewelry brands, has struggled in recent months because of disappointing holiday sales, investors’ worries over how much of its jewelry is bought on credit, and a scandal during which Kay customers alleged diamonds they had brought in for cleaning were swapped for lesser-quality stones. The company denied the diamond-swapping allegations. Its share price has dropped by half since its late-2015 peak.
Since 1998, Sterling has forced all employees to agree to arbitration — a no-judge, no-jury resolution system that allows companies to keep potentially embarrassing labor disputes and case records mostly confidential.
The nonprofit American Arbitration Association, where the Sterling case is being heard, allows companies to refuse arbitrators they believe will not fairly rule on their case.
Some companies have argued that arbitration allows them a quicker path to resolving employee disputes beyond traditional courts. Workers effectively consent to the rules when they sign agreements requiring arbitration as a condition of their employment, as seen with Sterling’s contracts.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a report last year that mandatory arbitration policies “can prevent employees from learning about similar concerns shared by others in their workplace.”
Ballou, who left the company in 2009, is hoping the case leads to more than back pay. Now 41, the single mother is back in school studying to become a registered nurse and working as an office manager for a real estate company, where she told The Post she “hasn’t encountered an inkling” of what she saw at Sterling.
“What’s sad is that I was there for so long, it was almost like when someone is in an abusive relationship: You think that’s what normal is,” she told The Post.
“I can’t even go into a Kay anymore. It just turns my stomach,” she added. “Even seeing those ‘Every Kiss Begins with Kay’ commercials revolts me, thinking of what’s behind them. All the good things they do, all the lovely things they promise. It’s a lie.”
Kristin Henry, a former Sterling employee, is seen in her apartment in Sanford, Fla. Henry says she was 22 when a district manager tried to kiss and touch her. After reporting the incident, she says, she was falsely accused of theft and fired. (Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post)
She told The Post she wanted to speak out in hopes that it could help other women, as well as her 8-year-old daughter.
“I was a victim, and I didn’t have anyone to speak for me,” Ballou said. “As humiliating as it was, it was worth it, because now maybe it won’t happen to her.”
April 18, 2012 : Today, a former employee of Computer Sciences Corporation (“CSC”) filed a gender discrimination and harassment lawsuit against CSC. The Complaint, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court (Case No. BC482993), alleges that CSC, a multi-billion dollar company which provides information technology and business services to companies throughout the world, routinely paid women less than men and denied them higher-paying and more prestigious positions. According to the Complaint, CSC has a practice of retaliating against women who complain by demoting or removing them from their positions, withholding their pay, and/or firing them.
The plaintiff, Anne Roeser, was a high level executive at CSC, who, according to the Complaint, was subjected to pervasive gender discrimination and harassment by some of the Company’s Indian male executives who did not want to work with women and who openly stated that women should stay at home, take care of their husbands and raise their children. These Indian male executives, the Complaint alleges, were openly hostile to women, they made sexist and derogatory remarks about women (calling them “girl,” “blonde,” and “white woman”), they demeaned the jobs held by women (saying, for example, that one high-level female executive’s job was merely to take clients out to lunch and go shopping with them), they refused to communicate with women about substantive work-related issues, and they behaved toward women in an aggressive, condescending and intimidating manner.
According to the Complaint, when Ms. Roeser complained about the gender discrimination and harassment and the illegal conduct in which some of these executives were involved, she was demoted, denied earned wages, otherwise retaliated against, and told to stop complaining. When she continued to complain, she was fired. The Complaint alleges that among other illegal conduct, Ms. Roeser complained that the Company’s off-shore Indian employees engaged in over 6,000 instances of illegally accessing the private health and financial information of the patients of one of the Company’s largest health care clients in violation of HIPAA, the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, and the privacy rights of these patients. Commenting about these allegations, Ms. Roeser’s attorney, Andrew H. Friedman of Helmer * Friedman, LLP, said, “Unfortunately, the glass ceiling really does exist at many companies. Hopefully, lawsuits like this one will shatter that ceiling and enable women to reach the same levels in corporate America occupied by men.”
