Company ban against "discriminatory materials"

Great Debates
1

The recent discussion on intolerance got me thinking about something I saw at a company I once worked for.

This company issued a memo stating that no “discriminatory materials” would be allowed on company premises, and that employees would not be allowed to read them there. Immediately I said “What the…?” The company failed to define “discriminatory,” probably because they wanted to keep their options as wide as possible.

I thought this was the most asinine policy I had read in years. “No discriminatory materials” could mean that I was not allowed carry any magazines denouncing, say, NAMBLA or the KKK. It also meant that I could not carry a broad class of religious (or anti-religious) materials. After all, if discrimination is the act of extending preference to one group and excluding others, then all these materials are decidedly discriminatory.

What’s more, the employees weren’t merely prohibited from espousing such viewpoints on company time. No, they were prohibited from even reading or carrying such materials. Talk about ridiculous situations!

Thoughts? Comments?

2

So why exactly would someone need to bring their private reading material to work anyways? Don’t they have a job to do?

Besides, I think the rule is meant to guard against “well, I’m reading this material and Bob is reading it, and we just decided to have a religious discussion group over lunch in the break room, and now Alice is all upset because she got an earful of Jesus while she was just trying to get some coffee.”

I don’t bring my religious reading material to work. It’s not pertinent to my job, and I don’t get to be offended over people’s religious t-shirts if I indulge in the same type of behavior myself. Perhaps your employers were simply trying to ensure that everyone, not just those folks comfortable discussing their religion at work, was able to do their job in an environment consisting only of work-related stuff.

Corr, who’s certain there’s at least one logical fallacy there somewhere

3

Any number of reasons. They could be reading it over their breaktime. Or they could be reading it during dull periods (e.g. when waiting for a computer to finish running a batch job) and so forth.

Doesn’t seem like a good rationale to me, for several reasons.

(1) If an employee is going to get upset because she overheard a (gasp!) religious discussion, then that’s obviously her problem. Should we ban all discussions that could possibly upset an eavesdropper?

(2) Even if it weren’t, that would only be an argument against conducting religious discussions. It would not be a sound reason for carrying religious materials – or even anti-religious ones.

(3) It still doesn’t justify the ludicrously broad move of banning all “discriminatory” materials. Heck, the motor vehicle code is discriminatory; after all, it prohibits the blind, feeble and mentally incompetent from driving on the roads. Should we ban all copies of the motor vehicle code from the workplace?

Let’s get one thing straight. Discrimination is not a bad thing per se. There are times when it is wrong – for example, when people are discriminated upon based on the color of their skin. However, it is not inherently immoral, as was pointed out in the “Intolerance of tolerance” thread.

4

I’d like to remind everyone that the policy wasn’t against religious material per se. It was against any and all “discriminatory” materials – a category which is ridiculously and needlessly broad.

5

I’m not sure it is actually needless. For the sake of arguement let’s suppose I put a little picture of a confederate flag in my cubical. What happens when a coworker is offended by it and feels uncomfortable coming to my cubical during the course of the work day? It may be silly but that little flag might constitute a hostile work environment to some lawyers.

Marc

6

How long ago did you work for this company? Because if it was relatively early in the evolution of the Published Corporate Anti-Discrimination Policy (sorry, I have no idea how to spell the name of the genus, so I won’t attempt to mangle it here where everyone is watching), that may explain the blunt-instrument aspect of the wording.

More likely, though, the suits don’t really care one way or the other whether the policy is effective at anything broader than covering the Corporate Behind against opportunistic litigation.

7

When attempting to avoid being sued, it’s understandable to go a little overboard. The not-work-related, on-company -property, on-company-time argument should be enough. I don’t see anything to get upset about.

8

That’s different, though. Not all “discriminatory materials” constitute a hostile work environment.

If an item generates such an environment amongst reasonable people, then it is also reasonable for the company to request its removal. It is altogether unreasonable for the company to ban any and all “discriminatory” materials, regardless of their nature.

Note that I say “reasonable people.” If somebody is offended simply because he/she overheard a religious conversation, or because he/she saw a copy of the Koran, that’s his/her own danged problem.

9

It was only two years ago. That’s one reason why I was shocked at its ridiculous “blunt intrument” aspect.

That’s probably true. Still, it could be used to harass innocent, well-meaning individuals. Besides, there are better ways to phrase such policies – targetting “hostile work environments” for example. No such phrasing will be perfect, but the verbiage used was conspicuous in its clumsiness.

10

Perhaps, but that’s not how it was phrased. Besides, such an argument would mean that no “personal” effects should be brought into the workplace – no posters, magazines or stuffed animals, for example, no matter how innocent. In other words, I don’t think that would be much of an improvement.

Furthermore, a healthy work environment would often allow for some non-work-related materials, such as books to read during lull periods, or during one’s coffee break. In contrast, sweeping, unqualified bans against all discriminatory or non-work-related materials are positively draconian in nature.

11

<<Besides, such an argument would mean that no “personal” effects should be brought into the workplace – no posters, magazines or stuffed animals, for example, no matter how innocent. >>

I don’t take anything to work other than: my headset and badge, notebook, purse and any personal items therein, pen, and depending on the time of year I may take a light jacket (if it’s hot outside and I think they have the air down low).

Am I totally out of the loop? What possible reason would you have to take things to work that you didn’t need in order to do your job? I don’t take my shampoo and nail clippers every day, or a spatula in case I have to cook something at lunch. Is there some difference I’m just not picking up?

Corr

12

Your coworkers don’t have pictures of their spouse and children? Or adorable little cross-stitch plaques with an irresistibly cute child and some smarmy saying on them? Or little figurines of bunnies?

Do you work for the military or something?! :smiley:

Honestly, I’m more or less like you. I have never had any personal effects other than plants in my cubicle at any place that I’ve worked. My reasoning is that I’m at work more or less unwillingly only because I need money to survive and nobody seems likely to start depositing large amounts of cash in my bank account for no reason. I go in in the morning, work, and come home in the afternoon as soon as possible. The Puritans can keep their lousy work ethic, as far as I’m concerned. I’m only in it for the money.

But there are a lot of people who just kind of plop a little slice of home in their work environment, even if it’s just a picture of their spouse or SO. Of course, any picture of any spouse or SO of mine would probably be considered discriminatory or hostile-work-environment material to somebody, considering…

jayjay

13

My center operates 24/7 and during the evenings & midnight shift, hours can go by with essentially nothing to do. If I couldn’t pick up a newspaper to pass the time, I am quite certain that I would go stark raving mad.

Be that as it may, my company has recently stated that no personal reading material of any kind is to be allowed at the workstations. When I asked why, management mumbled something about needing to forbid sexually expicit mags like playboy, et al. and since they couldn’t draw a clear line between sexually and non-sexually explicit material, they would just have to ban everything outright.

I pointed out that there is already a very clear distinction made in regards to sexually explicit material in our code of business conduct (CBC). So, since porno mags are already disallowed by the CBC, what is the purpose (I asked again) of the new rule?

Management needs to get back to me on that, it seems.

Later that week, some mention is made to the effect that there should be enough to do that we don’t need to have newspapers at our desks. When I ask what I am expected to do during those midnight shift hours when the phones are quiet, management makes the suggestion that I can go online to the Washington Post since they don’t restrict our internet access.

“So” I said, “you have no objection to The Washington Post online, but you have some serious problems with me having a hard copy of same at my desk?”

Management needs to get back to me again.

The other day while in my boss’s supervisor’s office, I notice she has a copy of the New Woman’s Bible next to her monitor. I restrained from making the observation public because she & I get along famously. I just think it’s a bit hypocritical.

So in the end, I believe that there is somebody sitting at a mahogany desk in our corporate office who is in charge of the department of stupid policies. This person makes up rules all day long, which make random things (whether real or imagined) forbidden.

They do this because they can.

14

To cop a phrase used often in other circles…

Just because they can doesn’t mean they should.

-Soup

15

The sad thing is, you can be reading something like The Washington Post, and some people might say you are creating a hostile work environment by simply leaving it open to a JC Penny’s underwear ad.

It’s cheaper for the company to write a memo banning everything, than to fight off even a single ridiculous lawsuit. Hence, now the workplace becomes the bastion of the ultra-prude and mega-sensitive.

16

heh, such is the problem with people who sue instead of agreeing to differ. it’s no fun for the rest of us.

meanwhile, i’m working in a nursing home over the summer with some very senile old people. i mentioned elsewhere that we had to remove a bible from one resident…but only because he was reading sexually offensive passages from it.

however, i clean rooms which have religious bits n’ bobs all over them, and various pictures of loving children and grandchildren in Orange sashes and Orange Order gear.
now, if i so choose, i could get pissed off, but i don’t.
My rationale being that the residents are entitiled to have what they want in their rooms, and as long as they don’t SAY anything offensive to me
( and to be honest most of them think i’m their sister/mother/daughter/girlfriend/wife)
i’m quite happy to ignore it.

17

Come on. Don’t you know ANYONE who likes to keep a few posters in his office? Or perhaps some action figures? Or some decorative knick-knacks?

Do they absolutely NEED to bring these things to work? Probably not – but it helps make for a comfortable work environment.

Besides, what about people who like to read, say, a passage from the Bible, Koran or Book of Mormon during their five-minute breaks? Should we prohibit them from carrying such books, even if it doesn’t disrupt their work?

Heck, what about people who keep candy bowls at work for their colleagues to dip into? Candy bowls aren’t work-related, but they seem like a reasonable accommodation to me.

Also, what about bringing a cookbook or paperback novel so that you can pass it along to a co-worker? If all non-work-related materials are banned from the workplace, then you must conspire to meet outside of company premises in order to hand it off. While this may be feasible, it seems woefully unnecessary.

18

Quite understandable, and quite reasonable.

Me, I do technical work. Every now and then, I come across against a technical problem that just refuses to be solved. Instead of crudely hammering away that the problem, I sometimes choose to divert myself by reading from a book, a magazine or a web site. This has proven to be a great way of getting past the more difficult mental blocks.

Yeah, these things aren’t work-related in any strict sense, but they can make the job easier.

19

Here’s my take: its “descriminatory” if it causes enough of a problem for them to want to blame you. A classic ass-cover, as I see it.

20

<<My center operates 24/7 and during the evenings & midnight shift, hours can go by with essentially nothing to do. If I couldn’t pick up a newspaper to pass the time, I am quite certain that I would go stark raving mad.>>

I’ve worked night shift before. Since I do tech support, I will never, EVER get done studying job-related materials. If I’m not fixing someone’s problem on the phone right now, I’m reading information so that I can fix someone’s problem faster and better tomorrow. I suppose part of that could be considered not work related, as I may occasionally wander into areas outside what we currently support, so that if I decide to take another job in future, I’ll have the tech knowledge to back that up, too. But most of my study is based in learning my current job better.

I only have an hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks, and those I usually use for “calls of nature,” finding snacks, and refilling drinks. Mostly I’m not getting the point of what other folks do because I couldn’t do any of those things without seriously slacking off my job or skipping meals. I don’t feel overworked; if my employer wants to provide me with a decent paycheck and kickass health benefits in return for a mere 7 1/2 hours of my mental effort five days a week, then I’m cool like that.

YMMV, of course.
Corr