Blasting Vulgar, Offensive Music at Work May Be Harassment: Judge

• A US appeals court has ruled that loud, obnoxious music played in the workplace may violate sex discrimination laws.
• A 2020 lawsuit against the Nevada company alleges that complaints about offensive music were ignored.
• A court ruled this week that the lawsuit was wrongfully dismissed.

If you listen to loud music with vulgar or offensive lyrics at work, you may be harassing your co-workers, and you could be held legally responsible for sex discrimination.

That is the opinion of Judge M. Margaret McCune of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Earlier this week, McCune wrote an opinion that a lawsuit against S&S Activewear, which claims the warehouse company’s management ignored complaints about offensive music, was wrongly dismissed.

The original lawsuit, filed as a class action suit in 2020 by a group of former employees consisting of seven women and one man, was ruled by a panel of appeals court judges who were accused of “sexually graphic, violent The lawsuit will be allowed to proceed after finding that “misogynistic music” is illegal. Loud volume through at least 5 speakers in a large warehouse may be legally grounds for a harassment claim.

The original complaint cited artists such as Eminem, Lil Wayne and Too Short as examples of music played that many employees found offensive, particularly because of its vulgar language and songs depicting violence against women. artists are mentioned.

One particularly cited song is Eminem’s 2000 hit “Stan.” The song saw a die-hard fan send increasingly hostile letters to his hero Eminem, finally taking the rap star’s music literally and driving his pregnant girlfriend and himself off a bridge. I’m drawing until I kill you.

The lawsuit alleges that an employee’s complaint to management about loud music being played in a warehouse in Nevada was ignored.

The complaint alleges that the company ignored its sexual harassment policy by allowing the music to play. The lawsuit also alleges that the company’s human resources manager instructed at least one woman to ignore music, employees shared pornographic videos and images, and made inappropriate comments to several female employees. It also alleges that it fostered an environment full of harassment, gesticulating, etc.

The lawsuit alleges that S&S Activewear management failed to adequately protect its female employees from sexual harassment because they continued to play music, and that music was acceptable to motivate employees. claims to have done so.

In Wednesday’s ruling, Judge McCune said the lower court had erroneously granted S&S’s motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the music “does not constitute sex discrimination” because the music was offensive to both men and women. said it was. McCune disagrees with this conclusion, stating that harassment does not have to be directed at a specific individual to be considered harassment, and even if multiple genders are offended by the same content, Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act does not. I wrote that it does not make it impossible to violate. The antidiscrimination law on which the original lawsuit was based.

“Whether sung, yelled, whispered, played on loudspeakers, or relayed face-to-face, sexist adjectives can be offensive, making the workplace a hostile environment that violates Part 7. ,” McCune wrote.

Notably, the district court dismissed only music-based harassment claims and said it would allow consideration of other harassment and harmful workplace claims. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission backed employees’ claims of harassment and said it was concerned about offensive music being played in the workplace, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Ninth Circuit judges cited several past cases that established that gender-specific offensive words like “bitch” amounted to gender-based harassment, affecting morale. He said the words and phrases didn’t have to be directed at a specific person to give. Talk about work or offend people. Therefore, when music containing that language is played loud enough to be heard by dozens of employees, it can be grounds for workplace harassment allegations.

A court ruled in another case in which a female employee filed and won a Title VII lawsuit against her employer because her male co-worker blared a “vulgar morning show” on the radio for everyone in the office to hear. , citing other cases in which women have won. I was offended by sexual content at work, but it wasn’t directed at me specifically.

S&S Activeware did not immediately respond to a request for comment prior to publication.