0120114186 (2012), Earl Dawson, a black employee, complained that the postmaster general let employees wear Confederate flag T-shirts to work for two months from March 2011 to May 2011 before the postmaster “finally instructed the supervisor to start sending the employees home to change.”ĭawson alleged that the postmaster procrastinated for two months before acting on his complaint because he lacked concern for Dawson’s feelings on this matter.
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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued decisions reviving claims that employers who let workers wear T-shirts with the Confederate flag on them unlawfully permit race discrimination.įor example, in Dawson v. Regardless, it’s “easy to claim racial harassment with a shirt with the Confederate flag, a swastika or noose,” remarked Jennifer Rubin, an attorney at Mintz Levin in San Diego, Stamford, Conn., and New York City. The banning of the Confederate battle flags in the workplace is controversial for some, as the flag was “flown by Navy ships in combat in the South Pacific in World War II as well as being raised after the Battle of Okinawa,” noted Christine Walters, an attorney and author of From Hello to Goodbye: Proactive Tips for Maintaining Positive Employee Relations (SHRM, 2011) “For some this ‘rebel flag’ is a source of pride in our country.”īut for others, it is a symbol of slavery and resistance to integration such as some took it to be, she noted, when in 1956 Georgia recognized the Southern Cross (the Confederate battle flag) as its state flag, which remained the state flag through 2001. “For this reason, we recommend that HR address the issue as soon as it becomes aware of it, rather than waiting for a complaint.” “Regardless of the intent behind the employee’s decision to wear the shirt, several courts have held co-workers wearing Confederate flag clothing can be a contributing factor in finding the existence of a racially hostile work environment,” remarked Ted Schroeder, an attorney with Littler in Pittsburgh and Morgantown, W.Va. That’s as true with the images on the T-shirts people wear to work as with the pennants they hang in their cubicles.Įmployees wearing potentially offensive images should be sent home to change clothes, told to cover the images with a sweater or asked to turn the shirt inside out before someone is offended, management attorneys say. What offends people-as demonstrated by recent objections to the Washington Redskins name-is subject to change.