Law Commons^™

Limiting The Affirmative Defense In The Digital Workplace , Daniel B. Garrie

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

From 2009 to 2011, there were more than 30,000 sexual harassment claims filed in the United States. The ubiquitous availability of digital technology devices has facilitated many instances of sexual harassment. Such sexual harassment occurs through unprovoked and offensive e-mails, messages posted on electronic bulletin boards, and other means available on the Internet. To date, courts remain silent on this issue. Should this type of sexual harassment be treated differently from physical sexual harassment? The surprising answer is yes. This Article suggests a new judicial framework for addressing sexual harassment perpetrated through digital communications. This framework accounts for the real-world …

Gina's Genotypes, David H. Kaye

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In August 2009, the Board of Trustees of the University of Akron added to the university's employment policy the following proviso: "any applicant may be asked to submit fingerprints or DNA sample for purpose of a federal criminal background check." Although the federal government does not do background checks with DNA, the policy is significant because it highlights a largely unexplored feature of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 ("GINA"). Hailed by the late Senator Edward Kennedy as "the first civil rights bill of the new century of life sciences," GINA generally prohibits employers from asking for "genetic information." …

Sexual Harassment: Limiting The Affirmative Defense In The Digital Workplace, Donald P. Harris, Daniel B. Garrie, Matthew J. Armstrong

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Digital communications sexual harassment is on the rise. Such harassment occurs through sexually offensive and unwarranted e-mails, placing harassing messages on electronic bulletin boards, and other forms of harassment that occur through the Internet. To date, courts have remained silent on the issue of sexual harassment by digital communications. Should this type of harassment be treated any differently than harassment that occurs in the physical space? The somewhat surprising answer is yes.

This Article advocates applying a new judicial framework for addressing digital communications sexual harassment. This new framework accounts for the real-world technology in the digital workplace and the …

Building A Community Through Workplace E-Mail: The New Privacy Frontier, Peter Schnaitman

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The relatively new technology of electronic mail (e-mail) presents an entirely new issue of workplace privacy. Currently, whether a person has a privacy interest in their workplace e-mail communications is as unsettled an issue as it has been since the technology emerged in the early part of this decade as the preferred mode of communication in the workplace. Indeed, e-mail may soon be the preferred mode of communication in general. This comment will argue that all e-mail users have a privacy interest in workplace e-mail communications and that the current law does not afford e-mail users any type of protection …