Dillard’s Reaching $110,000 Settlement in Sexual Harassment Case
On June 11, 2009 The EEOC (U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission) entered into an agreement with prominent national retailer Dillard’s Inc., in settlement of a lawsuit regarding incidents of sexual harassment in violation of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act. As part of the agreement, Dillards is to pay $11,000 in damages to the victims of sexual harassment as well as reform their workplace policies to comply with Title IV.
While the media typically depicts sexual harassment victims as females, males also fall victim to sexual harassment in the workplace. The Dillard’s case involved male on male sexual harassment at a Dillard’s in Florida. According to the EEOC, the Dillard’s store at the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando permitted a sexually hostile work environment for its employees. The specific incident involved a male supervisor that engaged in verbal as well as physical sexual harassment of two Dillard’s employees, a male sales associate and a male dockworker. The supervisor exposed himself to the employees, sexually propositioned them, and made explicit sexual and derogatory comments to them. While both men complained about the foregoing conduct, Dillard’s took no steps to resolve it.
The suit was originally filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Civil Action No. 6:07-cv-1496-PCF-KRS) in September 2007. The terms of the settlement provide that in addition to paying the victims $110,000, the Dillard’s store will provide its staff with booklets describing its anti sexual harassment and retaliation policies, conduct training for all employees on the matter, and train employees that will specifically be responsible for investigating sexual harassment complaints. Furthermore, Dillard’s will submit to monitoring by the EEOC for the next three years, and will post a notice about the resolution of this case.
The EEOC recently stated that employers ought to be more vigilant in ensuring that male employees are not being subjected to working in sexually hostile environments since sexual harassment cases involving male victims have increased sharply over the past decade.
