HR MANAGERS AS ETHICS AGENTS OF THE STATE 147the ‘opposition’ must include a clear statement that the employer is violating
Title VII and that the simple description of how the violation is occurring is
not adequate. The court drew our attention to this possibility in the case of
Colemanv.Wayne State University. In this case Coleman, a personnel officer,
claimed that he suffered from retaliation and constructive discharge due to
his opposition to racism and the lack of AA in his university. Coleman was
‘successful’ because the court perceived that he had specifically expressed his
opposition to racial discrimination in employment which is clearly protected
under Title VII.
The next hurdle arose when the court had to determine whether the claim
had been raised in a reasonable manner. Smith (2003) states that the legislative
history is almost silent on the employee’s latitude to oppose unlawful job
practices. Assuming that the employee opposed what they reasonably believed
was unlawful and that the employee acted in good faith, a number of tests
seem to be applied at this point: did the employee’s protest interfere with his
or her ability to effectively perform the job for which he or she were hired?
Did the employee breach any company policies, rules, or commands? Did
the opposition result in disruption to the workplace and were the company’s
goals interfered with? In other words, if the opposition was disruptive then the
conduct will not be protected!
It is probable that meaningful opposition to discrimination will be disrup-
tive to someone in the organization and the treatment of this issue appears
to drastically underestimate the emotional impact discrimination can have
on employees. Smith (2003) reasons that it is necessary for the context to be
understood and, in referring to the Holden case, suggests that the complainant
(or plaintiff, using the American terminology) reaction to the discrimination
by her employer was both a symptom of the injury she personally experienced
as a black person as well as a self-defence against the employer’s marginaliza-
tion of other black people. Also it is known that minorities are more likely to
perceive certain events as discriminatory than are white persons and this must
influence how opposition is perceived.
Furthermore, Smith (2003) argues that not to engage in some form of
opposition would result in greater injury because it would result in inter-
nalization of anger about the discrimination. The courts should therefore
examine the total context of the emotional distress created by discriminatory
behaviour. One of the best examples here is that of Becky Clark, who found
out that her husband, who had been hired at the same time as her by the same
firm which had a policy of pay confidentiality, was paid less than her husband
to do the same work. She protested about the unequal salaries for women and
threatened to contact the relevant external authority. This was done in the
presence of other employees as was the supervisor’s response which was to ‘do
just that’. Becky Clark then left the workplace and did not work the overtime
agreed to earlier in the day. Even though backpay was awarded in this case