Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 26, 1994 TAG: 9407270032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``This is a step that ought to put the nail in the coffin of these proposed guidelines,'' Sen. Howell Heflin, D-Ala., said Monday.
The legislation, adopted Friday as an amendment to a fiscal 1995 appropriations bill, now goes to a House-Senate conference committee on the spending bill. Heflin and Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo., have been spearheading Senate opposition to the guidelines, which sparked heated protests from religions and business groups after they were proposed by the EEOC last fall.
The guidelines define unlawful harassment as any verbal or physical conduct that ``denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward an individual because of his-her ... religion ... or that of his-her relatives, friends or associates.''
Critics argued that such language would cause employers seeking to protect themselves from lawsuits to prohibit all forms of religious expression in the workplace, including the wearing of a cross or a yarmulke.
The Senate approved a resolution last month urging the EEOC to drop religion from the proposed guidelines.
Heflin said the new legislation specifically prohibiting the inclusion of religion in EEOC's final workplace harassment guidelines was needed because three nominees to the five-member commission declined to say at confirmation hearings recently if they would follow the Senate's urging.
In addition to ordering EEOC to drop religion from the proposed guidelines, the legislation requires that any new guidelines on religious harassment ensure that symbols or expressions of religious belief are not restricted and cannot be used to prove harassment.
|- Associated Press
by CNB