Due to the ever-growing popularity of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, social media has influenced our everyday vernacular, personal relationships (or lack thereof), and even hiring practices. Statistically speaking, every 2 in 5 employers admit to using social media to screen potential hires, while 65 percent of those surveyed claimed that evaluating candidate’s professionalism in terms of social conduct was the most important reason for social media screening.
This screening process has resulted in several instances of employees and potential hires being asked to provide employers with access to their personal social media profiles, and in some instances, individuals are even asked to disclose their usernames and passwords.
Following new legislation, employers in key states are no longer allowed to demand this type of access. Nonetheless, employees still feel a need to proactively protect what they consider to be private details of their lives.
Dr. Misee Harris, a 29-year-old pediatric dentist from Tennessee, decided to make the choice to deny her employer access to her personal social media accounts by blocking them. However, no amount of precaution was enough as they in turn decided to enlist the help of one of her existing Facebook friends to monitor her account – unbeknownst to Dr. Harris.
“When they no longer had access to my personal Facebook account I think it prompted them to search harder for info,” she said of the monitoring. “It wasn’t just my Facebook account they had someone actively monitoring, but they would frequently come into my office and look at Post-it notes I had on my desk and search through my computer to find things that were to their disliking. They just wanted a look into my personal life even down to where I spent my time on the weekend and also where I vacationed. They wanted to know everything,” she said. Harris stated she believes her treatment is specifically a race-driven issue, as she was the only person in the office subjected to this level of monitoring.
On Sept. 4, Dr. Harris was asked to attend an unannounced meeting where she was confronted with screenshots from her Facebook page. The content in question was a political cartoon Dr. Harris posted on her page following the shooting death of Ferguson, Mo. teenager Michael Brown, which depicted an African-American male child with a target on his chest with the text “Open Season on Black Folks” in a bold font above his head.
Dr. Harris said she was then accused of being “unprofessional” and was asked by one partner if she believed “all of us,” referring to Harris’ white colleagues, are “like this.”
Then, Harris states, she was given an ultimatum: tone down her Facebook posts, specifically topics involving African-Americans, or leave. She decided to leave.
Harris states this was not her ultimatum, adding that in 2012 she was urged by a partner to not attend a political dinner with President Barack Obama, due to this particular partner’s negative feelings concerning Democrats and the Affordable Care Act.
Nationally, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces federal laws that make it illegal for employers to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee based on the person’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.
When asked if social media monitoring similar to that described by Dr. Harris would automatically be considered harassment, Carol Miaskoss, acting associate legal counsel for the EEOC responded that harassment must be proven to be based on one of the statutorily protected basis.
“Usually harassment is a combination of several smaller offensive behaviors that taken together are severe or pervasive, so much so that it changes the terms and conditions of employment,” she said. “In the few cases I’ve seen involving Facebook, usually the issue will be one of many negative things that happen in the workplace that are of direct relation to a person’s protected status.”
Last March, Miaskoss appeared before the national commission to testify on the topic of social media’s implications on equal employment in the workplace – specifically citing two examples of discrimination and racial harassment.
In Tennessee where Dr. Harris worked, the Employee Online Privacy Act of 2014, a bill which prevents an employer from requiring an employee to disclose the username and password for the employee’s personal Internet account except under certain circumstances, was signed by the governor in May of this year. In Indiana, a similar bill failed.
Harris, who was the only African-American to ever work at the dental office where she was employed, served underprivileged patients and those on Medicaid, a practice non-existent prior to her being hired. Outside of dentistry, Harris also works as a public speaker, contributor to popular news outlets such as the Huffington Post, and as a video blogger on YouTube.
“Prior to me coming they had no social media set up and I told them it was bad for business,” she said. Dr. Harris was in charge of all the office’s social media accounts and had even been asked to publicize the practice on her personal YouTube channel which has over 2,000 subscribers and 35,000 views. “It just blows my mind they used social media to spy on me but also wanted me to use my platform to benefit them,” she said.
Dr. Harris said she has no regrets about speaking out.
“My big problem with the whole situation is, the things that are happening in Ferguson, Mo. and in Black America as a whole right now are the exact reason why we can’t help make changes. People like myself who have a voice and are professional don’t speak out for fear of losing their jobs,” she said. “Police brutality is real and there is nothing that any of these teens could have done to result in their death,” she said through tears. “I refuse to not lend my voice to speak out on these issues.”
