Americans have been dealing with the impact of the COVID19 pandemic for over a year now.  Home offices, remote workspaces and virtual meetings via Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex and Google Meet are now a part of everyday life.   We have seen famous people caught up in Zoom mishaps of a sexual nature (we’re looking at you Jeffrey Toobin) and we have seen not so famous people inadvertently expose their coworkers to intimate details of their lives in virtual spaces. As people get comfortable with working and socializing virtually, many employers are forced to confront a familiar issue:  Racism.     On March 11, 2021, Matt Rowan, used racial slurs during a live broadcast of the Oklahoma 6A state basketball tournament. While the broadcast paused for the playing of the National Anthem, Rowan could be heard off camera mumbling to his co-broadcaster:   “They’re kneeling?  F*cking N*ggers!  I hope Norman gets their ass kicked.  F*ck them.  I hope they lose.  Come on, Midwest City—they’re gonna kneel like that?  Hell no.”   Rowan, a diabetic, blamed spiking blood sugar for his outburst.  The school districts in question are not using Rowan’s company to broadcast future games.   On February 21, 2021, two Georgetown University

        January 6, 2021 was already going to be a momentous day because a joint session of the United States Congress was set to count Electoral College ballots, officially signaling President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in the highly contested 2020 presidential election. The momentous day turned tragic as pro-Trump protestors breached multiple Capitol Police perimeters and occupied, ransacked, and vandalized the United States Capitol for several hours. Like any newsworthy event of the 2020s, millions around the world watched television cameras, smart phone images, and videos of the violence unfold. In the following days and hours, many of the perpetrators were identified through social media and employment lawyers got the call: “Help! I just saw employee x on Fox News running through the Capitol. Can we fire him?”   An employee of Navistar Direct Marketing (“NDM”), a Maryland company, was terminated after being photographed wearing his company badge inside the U.S. Capitol during the security breach. NDM put out a statement:   “While we support all employee’s right to peaceful, lawful exercise of free speech, any employee demonstrating dangerous conduct that endangers the health and safety of others will not longer have an employment

Sex and the workplace usually don’t mix well.  In these days of virtual work from home, sex continues to be an issue, even with fewer employees in the workplace.   OnlyFans is a content subscription service where content creators earn money from users (i.e. “fans”) who subscribe to their content.  Celebrities like Michael B. Jordan, Black Chyna, Cardi B, and Bella Thorne have made thousands, and sometimes millions, of dollars from posting content to OnlyFans.  OnlyFans is also popular with sex workers who post pornographic content.  Any adult can make an OnlyFans page and the subscription service pays out 80% of earnings while keeping 20% as a fee.  The specter of easy money combined with a global recession means that many employees have been supplementing their incomes through OnlyFans.   Recently, a 24-year-old female mechanic from Indiana was terminated after her male co-workers discovered her OnlyFans page and began watching her “adult” videos at work. The mechanic complained of harassment from male employees after they discovered her OnlyFans page.  She also admitted to sharing some photos in her company uniform and some taken on Company property.   On December 12, 2020, the New York Post outed a 23-year-old female EMT employed by SeniorCareEMS in New York City for having an “adult”