The Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in Evangeline Parker v. Reema Consulting Services, Incorporated, 915 F.3d 297 (4th Cir. 2019) grabbed headlines for its controversial ruling that workplace gossip can support a sex harassment claim under Title VII, but the Court’s decision may also be a harbinger for a decision down the road recognizing sexual orientation bias as a form of sex-based discrimination under Title VII.
The Fourth Circuit Reinforces the View That Title VII Prohibits Gender-Stereotyping Through Workplace Gossip
Despite starting as a low-level clerk in Reema Consulting Services’ (“Reema” or the “Company”) warehouse, the plaintiff, Evangeline Parker (“Parker”), worked her way up to eventually become the Assistant Operations Manager at the Company. While Parker attributed her success to merit and hard work, some of her male coworkers and other members of management had spread a rumor that she was only promoted to a management position because she slept with a higher ranking male manager at the Company. In fact, the rumor was started by one particular male coworker who started at the Company as a clerk around the same time as Parker. Not only did Parker surpass this male coworker in seniority, but she also became his supervisor. As the rumor spread throughout the Company, up to and including other members of management, Parker was treated with increasing hostility. She was kept out of staff meetings, her supervisor blamed her for the rumor being spread, and she was told that she would not advance any further in the Company.
Parker complained to Human Resources, naming the male coworker as the harasser for starting and spreading the rumor and her supervisor for threatening her job because of the rumor. A few weeks later, the male coworker filed a sexual harassment complaint against Parker, claiming that she had created a hostile work environment for him. Reema took no action as a result of Parker’s complaint; however, Parker was instructed not to have any contact with the male coworker as a result of his complaint. Days later, Parker was issued a disciplinary action for her complaint against the male coworker and told that her employment was terminated.
Parker subsequently filed a three count complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland against Reema alleging sex discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation in violation of Title VII. In response, the Company moved to dismiss her complaint arguing that Parker had not sufficiently alleged a hostile work environment based on sex. The Company argued that the rumor was not gender based, but rather was solely about Parker’s conduct, which according to the Company could have been levied against a male employee. The district court sided with the Company and dismissed the complaint.
Parker appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which overturned the district court’s ruling. The Fourth Circuit held that the district court failed to take into account the sex-based nature of the rumor as well as the inferences reasonably taken from the allegations in the complaint regarding sex stereotypes. The Court found that the rumor – that Parker, a female subordinate, slept with her male superior to obtain a promotion – implied that Parker had “used her womanhood, rather than her merit, to obtain from a man, so seduced, a promotion.” [1] This, the Court opined, emanated from the deeply rooted gender-based stereotype and double standard that women (not men) use sex to achieve success, and therefore, the complaint plausibly alleged that Parker suffered harassment because she is a woman.
The Genesis of LGBTQ Protections under Title VII via Gender-Stereotyping Prohibitions
Parker v. Reema was the first time that the Fourth Circuit acknowledged that gender stereotypes could give rise to a claim of sex discrimination under Title VII. Notably, almost thirty years prior, the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), superseded on other grounds as stated in Burrage v. United States, 571 U.S. 204, 219 n.4 (2014), recognized gender stereotyping as a form of discrimination based on the theory that when an employer treats an...
