A divided en banc Eleventh Circuit ruled recently that an HR manager’s actions of providing a colleague with the name of a lawyer that the HR manager planned to consult concerning her own allegations of discrimination was not protected activity under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The majority ruling reversed a divided 2018 three-judge panel opinion that revived the HR manager’s unlawful retaliation claim.
The decision by the full court in Gogel v. Kia Motors concluded that to be covered under the “opposition clause” of Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision, the employee’s actions must be reasonable. According to the court, this requires “balanc[ing] the purpose of [Title VII] and the need to protect individuals asserting their rights thereunder against an employer’s legitimate demands for loyalty, cooperation and a generally productive work environment,” and that when the opposition to alleged discriminatory actions “so interferes with the [employee’s] performance” of his or her job duties, it effectively “renders [the employee] ineffective in the position for which [the employee] was employed” and is no longer protected activity under Title VII.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.