Litigation testing whether obscene and misogynistic rap music in the workplace gives rise to a hostile work environment claim serves as a warning to employers to take proactive measures, regardless of the cases’ outcome.
Two separate, nearly identical sexual harassment lawsuits claim managers and other employees regularly played vulgar music in the workplace and disregarded worker complaints—one involving a female Tesla Inc. employee and another involving a group of warehouse workers. Both cases, brought under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, originated in Nevada.
As the cases make their way through the federal courts, they offer some early key lessons to employers to avoid scenarios where employees can view actions as disproportionately hurting members of protected groups, attorneys say.
At the same time, employers should take care to ensure that their policies and enforcement of them don’t benefit one protected group at the expense of another.
“Employers can avoid sexual or race-based harassment claims premised on offensive music in the workplace by having policies that forbid sexually or racially offensive content in the workplace—and actually enforcing them, especially if an employee makes a complaint about such music,” said Mark Oberti of Oberti Sullivan LLP.
“Most employers already have such policies. So, it is really more of a matter of diligent enforcement...
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