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Discrimination & Harassment

Is it legal to order a female employee to go bra-less?

by August 12, 2011 17 Comments

Inappropriate

From the Can You Believe It’s 2011 and Managers Still Act Like This? Department: A Utah woman is suing her employer for sexual harassment after he gave her a day-by-day schedule that included No-bra Thursday.

Trudy Nycole Anderson filed a formal complaint in federal district court alleging that Derek Wright, the owner of Lone Peak Controls and her direct supervisor, harassed her both physically and verbally.

And if Anderson’s allegations are borne out, Wright should have a bust in the Sexual Harasser’s Hall of Shame.

Anderson said Wright (this is a partial listing):

  • made repeated remarks about her breasts, and asked her to show them to him
  • touched her inappropriately, including two instances where he hit her on the buttocks
  • told her what he liked sexually and asked her to describe what she liked, and
  • told her he was installing a shower so they could shower together.

The kicker, however, could be the schedule he (allegedly) designed for her. Here it is:

  • Monday: Mini-skirt Monday, no panties allowed
  • Tuesday: Tube-top Tuesday
  • Wednesday: Wet T-shirt Wednesday
  • Thursday: No-bra Thursday, and
  • Friday: Bikini top Friday.

Wright viewed pornography at the office, Anderson alleges. And, according to the complaint filed with the court, “After three or four months of working (at Lone Peak) Wright brought Ms. Anderson a document to sign. The document said that Ms. Anderson would agree to allow him to sexually harass her in any way he wanted to.

“Wright told Ms. Anderson to sign this under threat of losing her job.”

Oh, there’s more — Wright spraying around a concoction that was “meant to arouse women,” Wright trying to make Anderson drink alcohol “to loosen her up,” and on and on.

For a look at the full complaint, go here. (Link courtesy of employmentmattersblog.com.)

We need to point out that these are just allegations — Anderson has asked the court to grant a jury trial on the charges.

But if half of these claims are true, Wright has moved the needle on male managers’ stupidity to a new low.

Categories: Discrimination & Harassment, Employment Law, Management, Special Report
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  • Joanna G.

    Laugh at the manager’s stupidity? Rather not. I think that it is possible that he thought since his behavior was so outrages, nobody would even believe it. It’s unheard of to combine a list of various harassment matters in just one claim; would be interesting to know whether the employee has any evidence to support at least one point of her claim. Unfortunate that women still have to go through things like that..

  • Common Sense

    Have these names been verified. I am pretty sure this is a recycled story about the whitehouse during the mid ’90′s.

  • Judy

    Unbelievable!

  • fred fep

    Sounds like he should be on the Supreme Court…

  • Political Cynic

    My my-and yet this article MKES a sexist statement. “But if half of these claims are true, Wright has moved the needle on male managers’ stupidity to a new low.”

    Tell me-given the increase in the number of sexual harassment complaints and sex discrimination compliants being filed BY men against wo9men and female managers these days (many of which have succeeded) how can a “legitimate” HR article make a statement like this? Was it NECESSARY to “male manager’s stupidity”? How ‘about just MANAGER’S stupidity.

    Or how about sexist stupidity of the writer of this article?

  • Common Sense

    @fred fep Is that a comment about an unsubtantiated charge levied against Judge Thomas? The accusation so big that liberals everywhere thought Mr. Thomas should be denied a spot on the Supreme Court simply beacause the of the seriousness of the charge. It’s not the nature of the evidence (real or fake) that is relevant for liberals. It was witchhunt to keep a non-liberal off the bench. What a shining moment in American politics when the left tried to Bjork another perfectly qualified candiddate. Embarressing.

  • fred fep

    Clarence Thomas is a lightweight. He never has an opinion. He never seems to decide anything on his own. He has conflicts of interest with his wife’s business and never excuses himself from such cases.

    Go find transcripts of the Thomas hearings and see how infantile Senators Simpson and Hatch sound with their inane questions.

    As to your silly parrot talk about liberals. Liberals can be spineless and give in to often, unlike your absurd rote branding of them. Geez, they approved all of these clowns now saying corporations are people, and other bad decisions. Do you know Thomas was a prurient perverse in EEOC. HE never brought one case up. All he did was party. Hill had corroborating witnesses but that shill, Biden didn’t call them.

    You should leave this one alone since Republicans have held up without hearings around 60% of Obama appointments and you guys have a lot of gall claiming anyone is spouting bull crap with all the absurd stupid stuff you throw at Obama (who I don’t really like but not because of all the ridiculous junk you throw around.)

    Congress is supposed to be who approves or doesn’t approve nominations. They aren’t a trial jury. Thomas was exactly what Anita Hill claimed. To doubt it is just being a right wing aparatchek. And one with severe spelling difficulties, to boot. And it is not Bjorking him, it is Abe Fortasing him. Only one deficient in history thinks Bjork was somehow unique. Maybe do some research before blurting out stupidity that gets repeated by the blowhards who you get your “facts” from. Biden should have blocked Thomas. He is unworthy of being on the court. I am not saying this about Roberts or any of your other knee-jerk right-wing ideologues on the court. Scalia is certainly vile to me, but he is not unworthy of the court. Nor the rest. Just Thomas. He shouldn’t be on the court. I blame Biden for him.

    You can disagree. Good for you. You’d put Beck and Rush on the court, too, I presume.

    And don’t accuse me of being a liberal. I am not wishy-washy like that. Sorry. I don’t buy into every item fed me by “my side” like you evidently do about Thomas and assumptions about his sexist claptrap. Sorry, he is powerful sadly, but he should not be there. Lightweight, a total lightweight

  • fred fep

    On 2nd thought, I’d like to get Bjorked, as Bjork is the Icelandic singer who wears swans around her neck and was in the band The Sugarcubes.

    Bork was the dork who was rejected by the Democrats when they still had some balls….

  • Common Sense

    I am sorry I don’t have too much time too waste in responding to all of your inane, petty, incorrect accusations, assumptions, wild tangents and hypocritical arguments. I am sorry that “liberal” was not a bad enough label for what ever you are. Are you perhaps a socialist? Communist? Don’t tell me I don’t want to know. However, I would like to make one comment. If I talked about Obama the same way you talk about talk about Thomas, I would be decried a racist by millions of the left’s minions. If I said I would “like to get Bjorked” in the same pejorative context as you, I would be decried a male chauvinist. But since you are a good liberal (socialist/commie?) and Thomas is a conservative, I realize that makes it an acceptable double standard.

  • fred fep

    I am sorry that you don’t have time to think. It would take maybe a decade, I do agree.

    1) It is hilarious to accuse me of being racist towards Thomas since I never said a thing about his skin color or anything remotely close. It is you who seem incapable of replying to what your rote reasoning calls petty and assumptions, et al. It is you who hold zilch for substance. He could be Italian or Vietnamese or any color. My criticism was of his meager mind (name any opinion he’s given, any vote differing from Scalia

    2) I gave no economic theories, so calling me communist is more dumb rote sheeple talk from you

    3) The Bjork remark was offhand slap at your lack of something, since you evidently have Borking in your small set of terms to use, perhaps you should know how his four letter name is spelled. If you are, as it seems, a radical feminist from the 60s to take any offense at my bad pun, well, I apologize. I am sure you never have about any of your ludicrous anachronistic assumptions you spout.

    4) I erred in writing anything to a dim-bulb right wing blog, excuse me for attempting to be smart. Evidently you prefer dittohead mentality. I apologize for taxing your brain cells past their due date.

  • Joanna G.

    Gays and Gals, how did it happen that what was supposed to be only commentary on the sexual harassment case for court rulling came to this point? There was nothing political in the topic. What is becoming with so many of us that all we can do is use public forums to attack one another, accuse, call names and use all possible ways to insult instead of exhanging experiences to rather master qualification? I mean, we are adults here… Look for yourself how far the comments drifted from the original topic. Maybe I am missing some important information and am not aware of the verdict. Was it by any chance Judge Thomas who rulled in favor of the defendant (an idiot manager/owner)? If not what was the purpuse to bring his name here? What was the purpose of bringing President’s Obaman name here?

  • Common Sense

    @Fred fep Please, I beg of you, stop with the straw man arguments and mis-characterization of my writings:
    1)I never said I didn’t have time to think. I said “I don’t have time too waste”
    2)I never accused you of being racist. I simply stated that if I would have made those remarks about Obama, I would have been decried as a racist by many people on your side of the aisle.
    3)I never called you a communist. I asked “Are you perhaps a socialist? Communist?” Since you are obviously a leftist and denied being a liberal (“because they are wishy-washy”), it was a legitimate question.
    4) I know you that you must realize that I am the furthest thing from ‘”radical feminist”. I was not “offended” by your comments. I just thought it odd that a person of such liberal sensibilities would use such degrading terms about women. Especially on a h.r. comment board discussing a story about inappropriate male behavior.
    5) I am a forgiving man. I will excuse you for your ill “attempt” to be smart, as long as you give a sincere apology.
    6)Don’t worry about “taxing my brain cells”. It hardly takes any effort to diffuse your petty arguments. As the matter of fact, I quite enjoyed it!

    @Joanna G. see point #4. In a way, it applies to you also. “Gays and Gals” Really? …Really?… You have a lot of gall using “gays” as a pejorative. It seems more than a little out of place (hypocritical even) for someone who proceeded to preach against the “use public forums to attack one another, accuse, call names and use all possible ways to insult” Do you not see the irony?
    However, with that being said, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was just a very ill attempt at humor.

  • Joanna G.

    Well, I guess it probably would sound nicer if I said “Ladies and Gentlemen” as I had no intention of insulting anybody.

  • Common Sense

    Joanna G. Thank you for your admission – I was not insulted. As I know your comment was in jest and I am neither a “gay” nor a “gal”, I just thought it to be a little ironic.

  • Joanna G.

    And I have to admit even more, an idiotic and very unfortunate “typo-error” without even realizing it happened. Quite devilish ‘typo’ as it was intended to be only “guys and gals”, still maybe not very nice address to people I don’t know. Please accept my apology.

  • Common Sense

    Apology accepted. Thank you.

  • Deb

    I can only hope none of you are actually in HR. Seriously, the threads are off topic and unprofessional.