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- Title
The Expressive Workplace Doctrine: Protecting the Public Discourse from Hostile Work Environment Actions.
- Authors
Segal, Jonathan
- Abstract
Fear of hostile work environment litigation has led employers involved in expressive enterprises such as television production to institute speech codes that make it difficult for employees to participate in the sorts of off-color, graphic, or painfully honest discourse that the creative process demands. In the quest to protect litigious workers' sensitivities, adult comedy might be less edgy; historical dramas might be less realistic; advertising less effective; the news of a political sex scandal might be less detailed; immigration debates might be less lively; even the nudes at a museum might be less nude. Consequently, curtailing certain kinds of speech within a workplace might have the effect of curtailing speech outside it as well. To minimize the extent to which harassment concerns deter constitutionally protected speech and to resolve the tension between the First Amendment and workplace harassment laws in expressive workplaces, legislatures and courts should give these employers a limited exemption from hostile work environment claims. This Article develops a rule called the Expressive Workplace Doctrine that would strike a needed balance between hostile work environment protections and First Amendment interests. The Expressive Workplace Doctrine tilts the hostile work environment balance toward greater speech protection.
- Subjects
HOSTILITY; WORK environment; QUALITY of work life; SEX scandals; HARASSMENT; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law)
- Publication
UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 2008, Vol 15, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
1073-2896
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5070/lr8151027105