Last March I wrote about the janitor/student who was punished by his university for reading a book while on his break--a book that co-workers claimed "racially harassed" them merely by having Klan images on the cover, despite the fact that the book was about an anti-Klan incident at Notre Dame. Watch a video about the incident.
Hat tip to NewsAlert.
When I was working in a hi-tech company way back when, there was a woman who went to HR complaining about harassment because the engineers were always using the term "black box" in reference to some of the integrated circuity we were dealing with.
ReplyDeleteYes, she was black and they had to explain that is was a common term for a circuit that has no public documentation on it's internal operation.
I believe that some people are overly sensitive to perceived insulting situations.
There's also no down-side to the complaints and, even if you don't get some particular compensation, you're liable to be treated like a Faberge egg rather then an employee allowing you get away with what you otherwise might not be able to get away with.
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