Religious Harassment out of pure motives

Todays post is brought to you by BSHRM Member Sandra Vinik.

Recently I was consulted  about a complaint of religious harassment made by an employee who I will call Nora.  I have changed the facts set out below   so that neither Nora nor her employer can be identified. Nora’s complaint was unusual   in that it was not motivated by ill-will, but by some of her co-employee’s kindness and concern for Nora, which they expressed inappropriately, in a Christian context, unaware that Nora is Jewish.

Nora’s son returned from military service in Iraq with traumatic stress disorder. On his return, Nora related to her co-workers that her son was “ going through a hard time” and certainly, it was obvious that Nora was having a hard time coping with her son.  Her co-workers sent her Christian devotional / inspirational messages by email, and her supervisor encouraged her to join a faith support group, which Nora resisted.

Eventually Nora had enough and she filed an internal complaint alleging religious harassment. When I Investigated the complaint I learned that some of the employees belong to a Christian prayer group, which publishes an inspirational message each day. The members of the group share those messages with their co-workers on occasions they consider appropriate. Since Nora was facing difficulties, she received very regular messages.

This situation obviously called for implementation of appropriate policies and employee training.  The training was educational; Nora’s supervisor and co-workers were totally unaware that their response to Nora’s problem was insensitive.  When confronted with Nora’s distress the employees were also challenged to examine their attitudes and behavior to employees who are members of other racial and ethnic groups. Judging by the questions I received during the training session, the entire workplace had an undercurrent of tension simply because nondiscriminatory policies had not been enforced, and the employees had never been adequately trained.

Comments

[Patti Steelman]

I believe training is the only approach that could have been taken in the situation with Nora and her co-workers. Hopefully, they learned something. The Southern Culture is one that I love and yet still become so frustrated. My frustration normally stems to the lack of sensitivity that many people have when it comes to religion. It comes back to the “bless your heart” mentality and the dominance that the Christians have over our society (at least in the South). At least Nora was Jewish and felt she could speak up. If she was Antagonistic or Atheist, she would have suffered silently.