When Workplace Gossip is Grounds for Title VII Claim

In less than 18 months of employment, Evangeline Parker received six promotions.  Then rumors circulated that Parker’s precipitous rise through the ranks “must” have been because she was sleeping with her boss.  When Parker complained about the rumors and confronted the employee who allegedly started the rumors, she was terminated.  Reversing the district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Parker v. Reema Consulting Services, held that such rumors could form the basis of a sexual harassment claim in …

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