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<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Arial">There's a new post on the <a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage"><font color="#0021e7" style="color: #0021e7"><u>Web of Language</u></font></a>: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; ">Court rules you can't swear like a trucker in trucking office</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Swearing at work may be good for morale, but according to the Eleventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, if you want to swear like a trucker, you’d better not do it while working for a trucking company.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Last week an appeals court panel ruled that an employee lawsuit against the transportation company C. H. Robinson Worldwide could go forward because “language and radio programming that are particularly offensive to women” create a “hostile work environment.” According to the court, even if the offending language doesn’t target the plaintiff, its persistent use violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Ingrid Reeves sued the shipping company she worked for because her male co-workers used sexually explicit language on a daily basis, the kind of language that would make a sailor blush. They also tuned the office radio to a morning program featuring explicit sexual comments, and when Reeves changed the station because it made her uncomfortable, the men in the office changed it back.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">...</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The lower court acknowledged that the work environment at CHRW may have been unprofessional, but since both men and women were subjected to the continual foul and sexually-explicit language, there had been no sex-based discrimination, and so it dismissed Reeves’ suit.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">But the appeals court disagreed, noting a parallel between racially- and sexually-offensive speech: just as previous rulings have found that racial epithets have a disproportionately negative effect on members of the targeted racial group even if they’re not directed at the individual who finds them offensive, the words Reeves called into question . . . were “more degrading to women than men.” ...</font></div></div></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">read the rest on <a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage"><font color="#0021e7" style="color: #0021e7"><u>The Web of Language</u></font></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#0021e7" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #0021e7"><a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage"><u>www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage</u><u></u></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Dennis Baron</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Professor of English and Linguistics</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Department of English<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">University of Illinois<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">608 S. Wright St.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Urbana, IL 61801 </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">office: 217-244-0568</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">fax: 217-333-4321</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#0021e7" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #0021e7"><a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron">www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">read the Web of Language:</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#0021e7" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #0021e7"><a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage">www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage</a></font></div> </body></html>