Title VII

Encompass Health, a Major National Chain of Rehabilitation Hospitals, Faces Serious Charges of Sexual Harassment

August 17, 2023 | by Friedman & Houlding LLP

Encompass Health runs a chain of rehabilitation hospitals across the United States. It is enjoying record revenues. However, Charges of Discrimination and Retaliation filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by nine current or former women employees of the Encompass Colorado Springs hospital threaten its success.

For revenue growth, Encompass depends on expansion and keeping its facilities at maximum capacity, which in turn depends on growing its referrals. Rehabilitation hospitals receive most of their referrals from discharge planners—social workers and case managers—at acute care hospitals or other health care facilities. Case Management and Social Work is a woman-dominated field. Encompass competes with other rehabilitation hospitals for referrals from these women. Encompass’s women employees rated it fifth among six major competitors according to a Comparably study done in 2022.

University of Illinois Employees Ask Court to Grant Racial Discrimination Class Status in Move for Broad Changes

June 30, 2022 | by Friedman & Houlding LLP

University Systematically Whitewashed Valid Harassment Complaints by Black Employees

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign employees Derick Brown, Atiba Flemons, and Jeffrey Taylor are suing the University for racial discrimination and racial harassment. Central District of Illinois, 2:19-cv-02020. They have filed a motion to certify a class of thousands of Black employees seeking a Court Order ending illegal racial harassment. The motion shows, based on records produced by the University, that over the class period of six years the University has corroborated exactly zero complaints of discrimination against Black employees.

Mr. Brown, a machinist at the University’s Facilities & Services department, whose initial complaint in 2017 concerned a coworker’s donning a KKK-style hood while other coworkers, including Mr. Brown’s supervisor, looked on and laughed, testified to the University’s indifference: “How can you not say that’s racial when the KKK hood over a guy’s face that are all white? And that’s not racial to a black man? And they find it not racial?”

Northeastern State University must submit to discovery in Title VII and Title IX action alleging sexual harassment

May 27, 2022 | by Friedman & Houlding LLP

A federal judge in the Western District of Oklahoma has denied Northeastern State University’s motion to dismiss a former employee’s claims of sexual harassment and retaliation under both Title VII and Title IX, after a coworker allegedly put his hands down her pants.

Deanie Hensley, the plaintiff in the action, worked for NSU in Tahlequah, Oklahoma for approximately 13 years. She alleged in her First Amended Complaint that multiple supervisors and co-workers engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior over that time, including sharing sexual cartoons and remarking on women’s bodies, but Hensley’s complaints resulted in no changes. After her complaint about a particular supervisor resulted in retaliation including stripping Hensley of job duties, she decided to take a position with a contract company that provided the university’s mail services. The joint employment with NSU and this company allowed her to continue working at NSU and using her expertise and familiarity with the NSU campus and personnel. However, Hensley alleges that one of the coworkers who had a habit of making offensive remarks sought her out on the job, then: “reached across the counter and put his hands down her jeans, with the backs of his hands against her stomach. He reached down to her panty line. He then pulled her belt buckle and shook it, commenting on how she had been ‘losing weight.'”

Shaken and traumatized by the assault, Hensley alleges that she complained to NSU campus police. Following even more complaints that the harasser was following Ms. Hensley and approaching near her in violation of a protective order, Hensley alleges in her Complaint that Steven Turner, NSU’s President, threatened the contract company with the loss of its contract if it did not remove Ms. Hensley from the NSU campus. Ms. Hensley alleges the inevitable result of this threat would be that she would lose her job–and that in fact, she did lose her job as a consequence.