Incentivizing Suppression: Retaliation Doctrine’s Negative Impact on the Expression of Workplace Anger

The Legal Studies Department has been working to develop a speaker series and we are excited to host our first speaker later this month. Leora Eisenstadt, a legal studies professor at Temple University, will be here on Wednesday, May 25 at noon to speak about her current work on anti-retaliation and anger suppression in the workplace. Leora has been working with one of her Organizational Behavior colleagues at Temple on the piece. A short abstract of her work appears below.

We hope that you can join us to learn about her work and invite you to bring a lunch and beverage to the talk in GHALL Room 408.

Incentivizing Suppression: Retaliation Doctrine’s Negative Impact on the Expression of Workplace Anger Leora Eisenstadt, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Legal Studies, Temple University - Fox School of Business This paper considers organizational psychology research into anger expression and suppression in the workplace, positive and negative outcomes of such expression or suppression and implications of retaliation doctrine on the creation and maintenance of healthy and productive workplaces. Several legal scholars have taken issue with courts’ interpretations of two related doctrines on the basis that they undermine the underlying goals of Title VII and anti-discrimination law. These doctrines are: (1) the “reasonable belief” doctrine, requiring that to claim protection against retaliation, the plaintiff must have opposed a practice that courts or a jury would find to constitute unlawful discrimination and (2) the “manner of the complaint” doctrine, allowing employers to defeat retaliation claims if the mode of complaint is deemed disruptive or insubordinate. Building on that work, this project examines these doctrines’ impact on anger suppression or expression in workplaces and, as such, the actual impact on workplace culture. Taking into account research in the organizational behavior sector should spur employers, who recognize the financial consequences of suppressing anger (decreases in employee engagement, retention, and sales), to support statutory or judicial reconsideration of the retaliation doctrines that reinforce these negative outcomes.