{"id":3056,"date":"2015-08-31T06:26:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T06:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/?p=3056"},"modified":"2023-03-14T06:27:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T06:27:30","slug":"are-managers-that-investigate-discrimination-protected-from-retaliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/are-managers-that-investigate-discrimination-protected-from-retaliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Managers that Investigate Discrimination Protected From Retaliation?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In addition to prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of&nbsp;&nbsp;race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, Title VII contains an Opposition Clause to protect workers from retaliation for advancing claims under the statute.&nbsp;&nbsp; Typically, the Courts have defined \u201copposition\u201d broadly to include a&nbsp; variety of conduct&nbsp;in opposition to unlawful employment practices, including both formal grievances and informal complaints.&nbsp; In&nbsp;<em>Demasters v. Carilion Clinic<\/em>, &nbsp;the Fourth Circuit recently considered whether a manager, who failed to&nbsp;support a pro-management position&nbsp;in another employee\u2019s&nbsp;sexual harassment complaint, himself engaged in protected opposition under Title VII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At issue in&nbsp;<em>DeMasters<\/em>&nbsp;is the proper application of&nbsp;the \u201cmanager rule,\u201d a doctrine&nbsp;applied&nbsp;by some courts that requires an employee to&nbsp;be acting outside of&nbsp;a management role in order to engage in protected activity.&nbsp; When applied, managers that routinely accept, investigate or evaluate complaints of other employees&nbsp;are not&nbsp;participating in&nbsp;protected activity&nbsp;when performing&nbsp;their regular job duties.&nbsp; After consideration, however,&nbsp;the Fourth Circuit rejected a&nbsp;<em>per se<\/em>&nbsp;extension of the \u201cmanagers rule\u201d to Title VII, holding that \u201cthe only qualification placed upon an employee\u2019s invocation of protection from retaliation under Title VII\u2019s Opposition Clause&nbsp;is that the manner his opposition must be reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Demasters v. Carilion Clinic<\/em>\u00a0(Fourth Circuit, August 10, 2015)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of&nbsp;&nbsp;race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, Title VII contains an Opposition Clause to protect workers from retaliation for advancing claims under the statute.&nbsp;&nbsp; Typically, the Courts have defined \u201copposition\u201d broadly &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/are-managers-that-investigate-discrimination-protected-from-retaliation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[282,289],"tags":[280],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3058,"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3056\/revisions\/3058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsgordonlaw.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}