The Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity (OEOD)
A quarterly electronic newsletter with the latest information on policies and programs related to diversity, discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment.
Programs and Trainings: Mandatory Sexual Harassment Prevention
Assembly Bill 1825 requires that all supervisors
have two hours of sexual harassment prevention training
by January 1, 2006. Supervisors may comply with
this requirement in one of three ways. Supervisors
may take the new online program provided by UC Office
of the President and developed with a vendor, Workplace
Answers. Look for an e-mail from WPA allowing
the supervisor to link to the training course. Supervisors
may take a live training program. Enroll via
Training & Employee Development (TED). Finally,
large or combined departments with 40 or more participants
may arrange for a departmental training. For
more information, go to www.eod.uci.edu.
Diversity Development Program
The Diversity Development
Program (DDP) is a program
that celebrates UCI's diversity while also addressing the unresolved
issues and concerns that exist in a diverse university community.
This 25-hour certificate program provides a unique opportunity for
staff, students, and faculty to engage in serious discussion on
various topics concerning diversity. Recruitment for DDP 2006
begins in November, 2005. The program starts in January and
ends in May 2006. You may send in a letter or e-mail of interest
to be put on a priority list, or be on the look out for further
announcements. Contact Prany Sananikone at psananik@uci.edu or call
at (949) 824-4549.
Interesting Cases:
Subjective Effects Matter: EEOC v. National Education Association
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that
non-sexual bullying that is not directed at a particular sex may
still violate federal law if there is sufficient evidence that the
impact of the harassment suffered by females was different from
that suffered by males. In this case, a male manager engaged in
bullying behavior by shouting, screaming, using profanity, invading
employees’ personal space and using threatening gestures.
The court found that the subjective effects of the behavior were
very different for women and men. If one sex is the primary
target of the bullying behavior, that could be discrimination based
on sex.
Blog Bungle
A Boston University Adjunct Professor was fired for
violating the trust essential to a student-teacher relationship
after he described one of his students as “incredibly hot” in
his Internet web log, or “blog.” In a posting
after he was fired, the author remarked that his comments were “pathetic,
juvenile, and boorish” and stated that he was “deeply
ashamed.” Freedom of speech and academic freedom are
not limitless: think twice before hitting the “send” button
on email and posting on web logs.
“Viewpoint Discrimination” is Not
Allowed Where Religion is Involved
A school district’s decision not to allow a religious group
to use several of its communications forums, open to other community
groups, was “viewpoint discriminatory” and unconstitutional,
ruled the Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently. In Child
Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) of New Jersey Inc. v. Stafford Township
School District, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the
school district could not exclude CEF from its forums.
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