Three Cases on Workplace Mistreatment

In the first of three mini-cases on workplace mistreatment, "Casual Fridays Gone Wrong," the vice-president of compliance for a collections company faced the dilemma of how to deal with a complaint about a manager's comments. The incident raised challenges for maintaining a respectful and inclusive workplace environment. In the second mini-case, "Dial 911—Health Care in Distress," a nurses' union representative at a mid-sized urban hospital needed to respond to a patient's threat to take his complaints about negligence to the media; he planned to identify the individual nurses he claimed had provided negligent care, in part due to his race. In the third mini-case, "A Toxic Academic Environment," formal harassment actions have been taken against Professor Marybeth Gasman, holder of an endowed chair at the University of Pennsylvania.