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By Lauren | July 30, 2010
Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s look at a potentially disastrous mistake made recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. One of its employees, Shirley Sherrod, recently got caught in the cross-fire of accusations of racism between the NAACP and the Tea Party. In an effort to prove that the NAACP is racist, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart accused Ms. Sherrod of stating in a speech to the NAACP in 1986 that she might not have been as inclined to help a white farmer in financial difficulties as a black one simply by virtue of race. To support his argument, Mr. Breitbart posted a taped excerpt of the speech on YouTube. In the ensuing uproar, Ms. Sherrod was asked by the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, to resign. After all, government employers can’t tolerate racism among their employees, can they?
No, they can’t. And if Ms. Sherrod had indeed said only what the clip showed, Secretary Vilsack would have been entirely justified in requesting her resignation. The thing is, Mr. Breitbart posted only a portion of the speech. When viewed in its entirety, Ms. Sherrod’s speech was actually a plea for equal opportunity, and the clip Mr. Breitbart selected was only the set-up for her compelling argument that racism is wrong, period. However, it seems that nobody at the Department of Agriculture bothered to watch the entire speech before acting to discipline Ms. Sherrod.
Secretary Vilsack and President Obama have both apologized to Ms. Sherrod, and have offered her another position in the Department of Agriculture. Ms. Sherrod announced today that she intends to sue Mr. Breitbart, and the federal government is lucky not to be named as the other defendant in the suit. In most jurisdictions, employers retain the right to terminate any employee at will, so long as the termination is based on a lawful reason. However, if an employer wants to terminate based on an employee’s alleged misconduct, the employer should first verify that the alleged misconduct actually occurred.
The Department of Agriculture could have saved itself a lot of bad press by taking a few extra minutes to get Ms. Sherrod’s side of the story before taking any employment action against her. Other employers are smart to learn from Secretary Vilsack’s gaffe. Before taking an adverse action against an employee, make sure you have the facts straight first. Doing so could save you a world of embarrassment as well as legal fees.
Topics: Business Ethics, Risk Management, ethics |
August 12th, 2010 at 2:28 am
This is basic HR practice - investigate and talk to both sides before taking action. In our current cutlure of media spin and instant reaction, the temptation is to pull the pull the trigger before we aim.