Supreme Court: prisons liable for lewd inmates
The high court let stand Monday a ruling that California officials didn't address sexual harassment.
By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 4, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
When Deanna Freitag began work as a guard at California's Pelican Bay State Prison, she became the object of a special brand of unwanted attention from three inmates in the highest security wing of the institution. She was repeatedly the target of lewd, exhibitionist behavior.
Male guards shrugged off the inmates' X-rated graphic displays, saying prisons are inherently hostile. Ms. Freitag complained to prison officials, warning that the inmates' conduct was creating a sexually hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
The managers say they took action against two of the inmates and arranged counseling for the third, but the lewd conduct continued. After more complaints from Freitag, prison managers retaliated – against her.
They attempted to destroy her credibility, according to her lawyer, and eventually fired her. She went to court, where a jury ruled that the inmates had created a sexually hostile work environment and that prison officials failed to adequately address it. The panel ordered the state to pay Freitag $600,000 in damages.
On Monday, the US Supreme Court declined to take up Freitag's case, rejecting an appeal filed by the California Attorney General's office.
Freitag's lawyer, Pamela Price of Oakland, Calif., says the case should have been resolved long ago. But she says state corrections officials have resisted fully enforcing gender protections in Title VII. "There are people still in the department who think it is a joke, who think this is just women making a lot of noise about nothing."
Lawyers for the state had urged the justices to hear the case, citing concern that the Freitag precedent might unleash an array of similar hostile workplace lawsuits in prisons.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Jacob Appelsmith says the case has forced corrections officials into a difficult posture of trying to balance the goals of maintaining a safe prison system against court-ordered remedial measures to prevent the harassment of women guards.
"Let me be clear, the Department of Corrections does not want its peace officers harassed by inmates," Mr. Appelsmith says. "We are just trying to weigh the many competing concerns in a complicated prison system."
At issue in the case was whether prison officials can be held responsible for failing – in the view of a judge – to adequately control the misbehavior of inmates. Corrections officials say they deserve a degree of judicial deference given the challenging conditions in many prisons.
RSS feed
