The Michigan Supreme Court has issued a ruling that a plaintiff who pleaded (and proved) the creation of a hostile work environment based on sex discrimination but not based on sexual harrassment could not maintain her suit. The court noted that Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on a number of prohibited bases, including sex. The statute includes a special provision that sexual harrassment is a form of sex discrimination, and sets forth a statutory definition that follows Federal case law making the same point, including adoption of the "hostile workplace" standard. Since that standard is used to define sexual harrassment, involving behavior or speech which is "of a sexual nature", it can only apply to that species of sex discrimination, the Court ruled.
The statute, MCL 37.2103(i) provides:
(i) Discrimination because of sex includes sexual harassment. Sexual harassment means unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct or communication of a sexual nature under the following conditions:
(i) Submission to the conduct or communication is made a term or condition either explicitly or implicitly to obtain employment, public accommodations or public services, education, or housing.
(ii) Submission to or rejection of the conduct or communication by an individual is used as a factor in decisions affecting the individual's employment, public accommodations or public services, education, or housing.
(iii) The conduct or communication has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual's employment, public accommodations or public services, education, or housing, or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive employment, public accommodations, public services, educational, or housing environment.
Other acts which would create employer liability for a hostile workplace based on other forms of discrimination, such as religion, ethnicity, or race, are not recognized under that category. (Left unstated is the fact that they can, if found to be based on the employer's policies or actions, be found to be directly violative of the prohibitions, regardless of a "hostile workplace" analysis.)
Haynie v. State of Michigan (6-11-2003)
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