Squire Patton Boggs Labor & Employment Partner Laura Lawless and Summer Associate Esther Gold cover a recent opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressing the extent to which sexually offensive music played in the workplace may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“These tunes are off the hook!”
“Yeah….well…don’t you think the lyrics are a bit….much for work? No? Not even the one about the man stuffing a pregnant woman in a trunk and drowning her?”
“Nah – I mean, these songs are super offensive, but, like, men and women are both really disgusted by them, so it’s all good!”
That is the gist of the defense advanced by apparel manufacturer, S&S Activewear, in response to a lawsuit filed by eight former employees (seven women, one man) alleging that S&S’s practice of blasting “sexually graphic, violently misogynistic” music through commercial-strength speakers throughout its 700,000 sq. ft. warehouse in Reno, Nevada created a sexually hostile work environment. Not content merely to broadcast sexist serenades denigrating women as “hos” and “bitches” and glorifying violence against women over the loudspeaker, at times employees also placed the speakers on forklifts and drove them around the warehouse, making it impossible for employees to escape the unpalatable polyphony. Swept up by the sexualized soundtrack, male employees allegedly pantomimed sexually graphic gestures, yelled obscenities, made sexually explicit...
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