Reference no: EM132221863

Questions: Why might a “reasonable person” consider what Ms. Robinson went through at Jacksonville Shipyards to be a hostile working environment? When did the offensive pictures, signs, and comments cross the line from poor taste to sexual harassment? How might Kant argue that this kind of harassment is unethical? How might a utilitarian argue that this kind of harassment is unethical? What might a follower of virtue ethics say about this case? Could one instance of a harassing behavior be sufficient for a hostile working environment claim? Why or why not?

Case: Lois Robinson was a first-class welder at Florida-based Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc. (JSI) Women in any skilled craft job are a rarity in the largely men’s world of shipbuilding and repair. JSI records show that between 1980 and 1987, less than 5 percent of shipyard workers were female, and no woman had ever held a supervisory or executive position at the company. Starting out as a thirdclass welder in 1977, Lois Robinson had steadily increased her skill so that she was the equal of any male welder. Still, she never quite fit in at JSI, which has been characterized as “a boys’ club,” where a woman could be admitted only as a sex object. She could not be accepted merely as a good welder. None of Lois Robinson’s coworkers or supervisors had ever solicited her for sex, nor had any of them offered some benefit for her sexual favors or threatened to retaliate if she refused. Lois Robinson was occasionally ridiculed, as when one coworker handed her a pornographic magazine while those around laughed at her response, or when another coworker passed around a picture of a nude woman with long blond hair and a whip. (Because she has long blond hair and uses a welding tool known as a whip, she thought that the picture was being displayed to humiliate her.) It was not these incidents that infuriated her, however; it was rather the pervasive presence of calendars, magazines, pictures, graffiti, and other visual displays of nude women that she found intolerable. The workplace was plastered with pinup calendars from suppliers that featured nude or partially clad women in sexually submissive poses, often with breasts and genital areas exposed. The suppliers’ calendars were distributed by JSI to its employees with permission to display them wherever they pleased. Employees were required to get permission to post any other material in the workplace—and permission was denied in some instances for requests to post material of a commercial or political nature—but pictures of nude women from magazines or other sources were displayed with the full knowledge of management, from the president of JSI down. The pictures observed by Lois Robinson included one with a woman’s pubic area exposed and a meat spatula pressed against it and another of a nude woman in full-frontal view and the words “USDA Choice.” A drawing on a dartboard pictured a woman’s breast with the nipple as the bull’s eye. Lois Robinson also became aware that the sexually suggestive comments increased when her male coworkers noticed that she had seen one of the pornographic pictures. Although crude sexual jokes were sometimes told in her presence, she was often warned to “take cover” or leave so that the men could exchange jokes out of her hearing. In January 1985, Lois Robinson complained to JSI management about the visual displays. Afterward, the pictures became more numerous and more graphic and the number of sexually suggestive comments to her and the other women increased. The complaints to her supervisors were apparently passed to higher levels of management, and a few pictures were removed only to be replaced by others. Some of the pictures to which she objected were in the shipfitter’s trailer, where she and other workers reported to receive instructions, and she sometimes entered the trailer to check on paperwork. One day the words “Men Only” appeared on the door of the trailer, and though the sign was soon painted over, the words could still be observed. One supervisor pointed out that the company had no policy against the posting of pictures and claimed that the men had a constitutional right to do so. The supervisor’s superior declined to order the pictures removed. Another supervisor suggested that Ms. Robinson “was spending too much time attending to the pictures and not enough time attending to her job.” As a federal contractor (JSI performed repairs on ships for the U.S. Navy), the company is obligated by presidential order to be nondiscriminatory and to have an affirmative action plan. In 1980, JSI adopted a policy entitled “Equal Employment Opportunity.” The policy stated in part: We should all be sensitive to the kind of conduct which is personally offensive to others. Abusing the dignity of anyone through ethnic, sexist, or racist slurs, suggestive remarks, physical advances or intimidation, sexual or otherwise, is not the kind of conduct that can be tolerated. The policy asked that any violations be reported to the EEO coordinator at the facility. The policy was not generally known to the supervisors at the shipyards, nor was it incorporated in the standard JSI rule book. The supervisors received no training on how to deal with reports of sexual harassment or other problems, and the name of the EEO coordinator was not given in the policy and was not widely known to employees in the company. In any event, the experience of Lois Robinson was not likely to encourage any victim of harassment to make a report to anyone at JSI. On September 2, 1986, Lois Robinson filed a suit against Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc., for sexual harassment. In the suit she cited the pervasive presence of sexually explicit pictures, the sexually suggestive and humiliating comments of her male coworkers, and the “Men Only” sign on the shipfitter’s trailer.