One of the first issues I ever dealt with as an employment lawyer involved a personal photograph in a private office. A manager had a picture of his wife in a very skimpy bathing suit displayed on his desk. My recollection is that this was an 8 by 10 photo, large enough for the details to be obvious to anyone who stuck their head in the door. There were the usual complaints from several women in the office who objected to having to look at a mostly uncovered female form every time they had business with this manager.
We dealt with the problem by telling the manager that the company really didn't want pictures of scantily clad women prominently displayed in the office as a matter of professionalism. That seemed to quell the issue.
The latest round in the office photo wars is taking place in Illinois, where a female public defender prominently displayed a picture of herself holding an M16 in front of the Israeli flag, taken when she was serving as a volunteer reservist in the Israeli army.
Apparently, the picture had been in her personal office for some time but after the events of October 7, 2023, she moved the photo to a public area where people in the office displayed personal photos and awards. This drew an immediate and ignorant response from office management who were offended by the Israeli flag as much as they were by the automatic rifle. They initially ordered her to remove the photo from the public display, and then without permission entered her office and removed the photo from there. All of this was done under the guise of some kind of anti-violence policy because the photo could be perceived as “threatening.” Or perhaps it was the Star of David. As is typical with these decisions, the actual rationale gets murkier when people are asked to explain it.
Because this involves a public employee, the 1st Amendment is implicated, and the lawsuit the former soldier filed reflects this. But for private sector employers, there are additional issues immediately apparent, starting with the potential religious discrimination issue, as well as potential claims involving political discrimination under Illinois law. I also suspect that there were lots of other potentially objectionable photos on display in that office that were not singled out for attention and didn't happen to involve Jewish artifacts.
This is a lousy situation for an office that likely has some exposure. Based on the allegations in the Complaint, I'm hoping that the case doesn't go away and that all of the biases get revealed over the course of discovery.
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