When Displaying an American Flag at Work Offends Some Employees

SHRM’s HR News (September 20, 2019) To commemorate Sept. 11, an employer hung two American flags in the workplace. Some employees who were born in other countries complained. What would you do? That situation happened last week to an HR professional who posted about it on SHRM Connect, the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) online discussion platform. The HR professional, who works at a call center with hundreds of employees from diverse backgrounds, said the employer hung two American flags on the walls of the production floor on Sept. 11 to commemorate the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. Grant P. Alexander is a partner with Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP in Los Angeles. He specializes in laws on free speech in the workplace. Could a company risk discrimination lawsuits by hanging the American flag in the workplace without showcasing the flags of other nations from which workers hail? The answer, he said, would depend on a company's policy on displaying other items at work. If, for instance, company policy prohibits the posting of flags, team banners or other materials for a nondiscriminatory reason—such as to maintain a tidy office atmosphere—that policy would probably withstand court scrutiny as long as it's uniformly applied. "That's important because if the company has a policy which prohibits the posting of banners, flags or posters, then the company needs to apply that policy uniformly," he said. "It can't hang an American flag while telling others that hanging their own flags or banners is against company policy." Read More (subscription required)