On April 18, 2016, United States District Court Judge David Proctor confirmed that generalized complaints by employees about “harassment” are not protected by Title VII. Instead, the “harassment” complained about must be harassment that is prohibited by Title VII. See Ellison v. City of Birmingham, No. 2:14-CV-00154-RDP, 2016 WL 1554927 (N.D. Ala. Apr. 18, 2016).
In Ellison, the employee sued for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that she was terminated for complaining about being harassed. But, when complaining about harassment, an employee can only succeed if she possesses “a good faith, objectively reasonable belief that such harassment was unlawful under Title VII.”
While the employee in Ellison unquestionably complained about the way she was treated at work, Judge Proctor found that she did not complain about treatment that violated Title VII. Instead, she complained about being: deemed a “troublemaker,” called a “devil” for “keeping up mess,” and called “baby duck” for following around behind a friend of hers. Judge Proctor found that those complaints were merely about “unspecified personal conflict” and “wholly unrelated to Title VII.”
Judge Proctor’s decision simply reinforces the well-established principal that Title VII is not a “workplace civility code.” Thus, not all “harassment” violates Title VII, and merely complaining about “harassment” does not grant protection under Title VII. Instead, only complaints about harassment based upon a protected characteristic are entitled to protection.