We have all come to believe that workplace harassment, especially when it involves any type of sexual harassment is wrong. Most of us would agree that it is abhorrent. However, with changing times, and with people learning to better accept themselves, the definition of what constitutes sexual harassment is constantly changing and expanding. This is true in all professions. At question here is the issue of funeral ethics.
Let’s take, for example the recent case involving the R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home in Garden City, Michigan, a town near to Detroit. From a funeral ethics perspective I’m sure this case will create quite the discussion within the profession.
The funeral home’s director was Aimee Stephens. Ms. Stephens was a good employee, a trustworthy and compassionate employee however she was fired in 2013 for a rather unexpected reason: she disclosed to her employers that she was making the transition from a male to a female. In that regard, she began dressing as a woman. They fired her. This started an interesting chain of events as it relates to choices and funeral ethics.
The funeral home claimed it had very strong religious beliefs and initially U.S. District Judge Sean Cox on hearing the case brought by Ms. Stephens sided with the business.
The judge said that by Ms. Stephens manner of dress, she “would impose a substantial burden on its ability to conduct business in accordance with its sincerely held religious beliefs.”
It set up an interesting argument but not an argument strong enough to dissuade Ms. Stephens and her legal team from the filing of a law suit with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC, by unanimous decision overturned Judge Cox’ argument and said:
“…discrimination against employees, either because of their failure to conform to sex stereotypes or their transgender and transitioning status, is illegal under Title VII” of federal civil rights law.”
The EEOC judges, further commenting issued this additional statement:
“The unrefuted facts show that the funeral home fired Stephens because she refused to abide by her employer’s stereotypical conception of her sex.”
Funeral Ethics and The Wardrobe
In another aspect of the case was the issue of wardrobe. By policy, the R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home provided a clothing allowance to the male representatives who dealt with the public but not to the women.
The EEOC further said that court said that there was a “seemingly discriminatory clothing-allowance policy” in place. The funeral home not only discriminated against someone who was making a sex transition, but they were doubly discriminatory in that they provided a clothing allowance only to male and not female employees. They had set up a system where no matter what, Ms. Stephens was not going to win. Some would argue that the owners should have the power of choice to decide how to run their business. Choice only extends so far and according to the EEOC they broke the law and that would, in most states, be a violation of established funeral ethics.
Not surprisingly, the funeral home approached another organization for their side, the “Alliance Defending Freedom,” who has stated that the EEOC decision:
“rewrites federal law and is directly contrary to decisions from other federal appellate courts.”
Naturally, the ACLU has also weighed in on this – of course on the side of the transgender employee:
“A growing number of courts have recognized transgender individuals are protected. It [this case] does address the funeral home’s religious excuse in a comprehensive and powerful way. That will be cited as law … and it will have an effect throughout the country, too.”
Ultimately, the case is a critical study in how society views gender, sexual orientation and sexual harassment issues. It pits certain, closely-held religious beliefs, and workplace issues against the EEOC, government and changing sexual harassment viewpoints.
How do we ethically view gender, sexual orientation and sexual proclivities in our society? As a person who dealt with the public, the man who would become Aimee Stephens had been a great employee. As the transition was being made, her employer treated her as a pariah. It might constitute a different type of sexual harassment, but it is sexual harassment all the same. That’s the problem – sexual harassment is illegal and funeral ethics would hold that licensed establishments are ethically bound to uphold the law.
Do we have the right to be individuals in this society – or not? That is a key question that Aimee Stephens is asking of all of us. She committed no crime, no more or less a crime than a woman in a wheelchair trying to get a job in a fitness center or a Christian who has converted to Judaism working in a church or a light skinned black man being asked to leave a “whites only” country club after being “discovered.” While these may be silly or even extreme examples, they all share the thread of truth that runs through all of us.
Are we as a society committed to inclusion, diversity and the ending of sexual harassment, or are we just paying it lip service?
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