Your company has never had a formal dress code, but informally managers tell employees to dress “business casual.” Due to recent issues with employee dress, your company wants to implement a dress code, and you have been tasked with this project. Broadly, the parameters you have been given are:  The CEO is concerned with female employees wearing clothes that are too tight fitting/sexual. He wants to make it clear that relatively conservative workplace dress is expected. Specific examples he has given are short skirts, tight leggings with no long top/dress to provide coverage, and low-cut/tight tops.  He does not want employees to have visible tattoos. He wants both male and female employees to have clean, neat hairstyles that are of normal human color (i.e. no green, blue, purple hair, etc.).  He does not want male or female employees to have any visible piercings other than plain, professional looking earrings for women.  Overall, the dress code should promote relatively conservative, business casual attire/appearance. Explain what legal issues you need to consider in crafting this dress code. Can the CEO’s concerns be accommodated? Are there any of the things that he has outlined that are illegal? In essay form, provide a legal analysis of the various legal issues you will need to address in drafting this dress code, and how they will affect your ability to address the CEO’s concerns. 

You are a manager for a home insurance company, and thus your company has access to sensitive personal and financial information of customers. You have recently found information leading you to believe that someone in your company has been accessing and stealing customer information from your databases. You have several employees who process insurance claims from home. Since the workplace computers have higher levels of security than the company laptops your employees take home, you believe that this is where the theft of information is occurring.  To catch the thief, you have your IT department remotely install additional monitoring software on these company owned laptops that employees use at home. This software monitors all employee keystrokes as well as all websites visited by the employee on the computer.  While you have not found the thief yet, you have discovered that one of your employees has been using the company laptop to access online message boards/social media sites that are concerning to you. These message boards are for various “alt-right” political groups advocating for policies you find very concerning. Many of the posts made by your employee are right on the edge of what you would consider to be racist/white nationalist. You find the employees’ posts offensive, and you are worried if anyone found out about them, it would cause reputational damage to your company. Address the following two questions in an essay answer:  1. Was it an invasion of privacy for you to put this computer program on the employees’ computers? If you want to continue to monitor employee computers, are there any steps you need to take to minimize the chance of being successfully sued for invasion of privacy? 2. You want to fire this employee. Can you? Can the employee successfully sue you for wrongful termination or discrimination if you do? Make sure you fully explore/explain your reasoning using an IRAC analysis like you have used for your memo assignments.

You manage HR for Forever 65,  a retail fashion chain that sells sexy, modern clothing targeted towards senior citizen women.  The store has a very small men’s section, but approximately 95% of company’s sales are to women.  The store sells everyday clothing and evening wear as well as lingerie and swimwear.  You receive the following question from one of your store managers: I recently had a male applicant for a position in our swimwear department.  This position not only handles sales, but also helps handle measurements and fittings for women purchasing swimwear.  This job entails going into the dressing room with women, giving opinions about swimwear, and sometimes even helping customers figure out how to get a swimsuit on.  He seems like a nice enough guy, and he meets the technical qualifications for the job, but I don’t think our customers will be comfortable with a male serving in this position.  Can I legally take this applicant’s gender into account in deciding whether or not to hire him for this position? Fully analyze and answer this question in essay form (remember, focus on a well structured IRAC answer).

Explain what a “religion” is under Title VII, and what an employer’s responsibility is with respect to not discriminating based upon religion and the accommodating employees’ religious practices. In answering this question, provide an example of a belief system that would not be considered a “religion” under Title VII, and a belief system that would.

You manage HR at a bank. A female employee has recently resigned from the company and filed a sexual harassment complaint with the EEOC against your company. Her allegations are:  For the past three years, one of her male co-workers has propositioned her for sex on a regular basis. She says she has always said no, and has requested that he stop, but he has not stopped.  She claims other employees, including her supervisor, knew about this, but never did anything about it, and even at times joked about it.  In addition to propositioning her, she claims he has also groped her at work, and has attempted to kiss her.  Her complaint admits that she was not fired, but she says she had to resign because working at the company had become impossible, and she was experiencing mental health problems due to this harassment.  Your internal company records reflect:  This employee has not made any formal claims of sexual harassment. Your company does have a sexual harassment policy that encourages employees to report allegations of sexual harassment, and provides the channels for doing so.  You do not have a signed acknowledgement form of this sexual harassment policy from the employee, but you do have an attendance list showing that she attended training on the sexual harassment policy, which you administered.  The employee has had average to below average performance reviews. At the time she resigned, she was not in danger of being fired, but she wasn’t a top performer either.  The co-worker she accuses of harassing her does not have any records of sexual harassment complaints against him.  In an essay form, provide your analysis of this complaint and what steps you would take as an HR manager now that you are aware of it. Issues you address include (but are not limited to):  What type of legal claim under Title VII is she be asserting here? What additional information do you need to evaluate her claim, and how would you start obtaining it?  What legal defenses does your company have against this complaint? Make sure you fully explain the legal bases for your defense, as well as your analysis of how likely you are to be successful.

What is the form of engagement where citizens are directly involved in the implementation of policy (e.g. recycling, water waste reporting)

True/False: Federal money that flows to local governments only comes via pass throughs from state governments.

True/False: The usage of state preemption is increasing the most recent era.

Name and describe two advantages of Citizen Participation/Engagement. Does this apply to citizens, government or both? Is the advantage related to processes or outcomes? Justify your answers.

All of the following symptoms have been observed during the abuse of inhalants except