The Supreme Court has issued its decision in Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and not surprisingly held that Ms. Crawford's statements were protected by the "opposition" clause of Title VII. I previously discussed Crawford in a prior post so I won't say too much about it here.
Two points are noteworthy.
The Court generally held statements during an internal investigation that report harassing conduct are protected but the Court also observed: "It is true that one can imagine exceptions, like an employee’s description of a supervisor’s racist joke as hilarious, but these will be eccentric cases . . ."
The Court's decision rested solely on the opposition clause of Title VII. The Court did not address whether an employee's participation in an employer's harassment investigation was "participation" clause protected activity. That avoids at least one headache for employers.
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