Reference no: EM133199978

One of your family friends is starting a business. He is a fashion designer and just won a television reality show competition concerning the design of his own couture clothing line. You are hesitant to leave your current job but decide that helping a family friend is important, and if the business takes off, the position could prove lucrative financially to you with early stock options, etc.

The family friend, a designer, is the new venture's first employee. He realizes the importance of HR in California, and so you are the second employee at the company, based in West Hollywood, California. You and the designer decide to hire two consultants for a total of four employees to start the venture.

After a few weeks of all four employees working together on the Fall 2022 line, one of the consultants, Andrew, goes into your office and says that she self-identifies as a woman, is going to come out as transgender, and would like everyone to call her Andrea and use effeminate pronouns, e.g., she and her, and is going to start dressing in a stereotypically-female fashion.

The fashion designer is quite concerned. While the fashion industry is politically liberal and woke in terms of gender and identity, the fashion designer wanted cisgender (denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth at sex) male consultants because the clothing line is for men and the designer believes that employees who self-identify with the target audience are important to the line's success.

A week after your meeting with the consultant, she comes to you and tells you that the fashion designer has started to call her queenie rather than Andrea. She says that he has not called her Andrea the entire week and probably calls her queenie at least a dozen times per day. She tells you that it is a hostile work environment and is going to quit or sue unless things change.

You are cognizant that the designer is a friend. But your first goal is to protect his company. Please draft a memorandum to the fashion designer regarding your analysis of the legal liabilities (the company's, the designer's, etc.), if any, concerning his behavior and your recommended course of action going forward. Please anticipate that the designer wants to fire the consultant and analyze the legal liabilities, if any, of firing the consultant after meeting with Andrea and hearing her allegations. Again, please discuss the legal liabilities of the designer's behavior (for both the company and the designer), of a decision to terminate Andrea, and your advice and recommendations for moving forward.