“Ms. Johnson, this court finds you not guilty of assault and battery. Despite your acquittal, you will have to wear an ankle bracelet at all times.“

“Mr. Clay, you have been found guilty of petty theft. Even though you’ve never been convicted of anything before, you were previously accused of petty theft — and acquitted that time. So you’re really a repeat offender and will be punished as such. Ten days in jail for you!”

“Ms. Smith, you’ve been sued by your neighbor Mr. Brown for allegedly disturbing the peace. We’ll try this case in a few months — in the meantime, you both need to stay away from each other. So until this case is decided, you, Ms. Smith, need to stay either inside your house or away from the neighborhood all day each Saturday, when Mr. Brown likes to play outside with his kids, as well as between 6:45am and 7:00am and between 4:45pm and 5:00pm each business day when Mr. Brown goes out to his car in the morning and comes in from his car in the afternoon. And one last thing — if, for example, you’re on line at Five Guys waiting for your order, and Mr. Brown comes in, you need to leave immediately.”

Huh? We’d never stand for anything like that, right?

Then we need to tell the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that, because they seem to think we’d love it.

The EEOC is overhauling workplace harassment regulations throughout the United States. For years, the EEOC as well as the courts have handed down many specific decisions in response to workplace harassment complaints. Now, the EEOC wants to codify some of them.

If it weren’t for anti-harassment laws, regulations and court decisions, American women, minorities and others would have a much rougher time at work. Things will never be perfect, but U.S. workplaces are, by and large, models of civility compared to just a few decades ago. Gross sexual jokes, ethnic insults and blatant discrimination were rampant within living memory. Now, in most American workplaces, civility and equality are much more common.

Thing is, it’s easy enough to blow the obvious cases out of the water: The boss who grabs his secretary’s rear end in front of everyone, the white workers who throw the N-bomb at their African-American colleague, the manager who demands that everyone go to church on Sundays and makes life miserable for Jews, Muslims, atheists and others who don’t.

Beyond that, do we believe Bill when he says that he never whistled at Lisa...or Lisa when she says that Bill wolf-whistled at her many times? Do we accept John’s perception of his chats as simple friendliness, or Mary’s perception that John was flirting with her? Do we agree with Anna that it’s OK to ask her Italian co-workers if their families ever had trouble with the Mafia...or with Tony that it’s bigoted?

These are all tough questions, for which we need careful and fair investigations. Problem is, the EEOC now wants to put a thumb on the scale. Its proposed regulations:

Would push employers to increase monitoring of an accused employee — even if the employer does not find proof of wrongdoing.

If that employee is accused a second time and this time is found guilty, would push the employer to give him/her a harsher punishment than if s/he had not previously been accused and acquitted.

Would require employers, while an investigation is pending, to separate the complainant and respondent — entirely to the benefit of the complainant, and entirely at the respondent’s expense. For example, Carlos accuses William of anti-Hispanic slurs, and they work together full-time in a small convenience store. While the manager is trying to find out whether or not slurs were said in the first place, William would automatically be the one who has to either drop to part-time and work inconvenient hours (only those hours Carlos isn’t scheduled to work), or sit at home likely without pay. Because it’s always better to make the accused (and his/her family) suffer than to let the accuser risk seeing him/her at work.

That’s not fair. Maybe businesses sometimes act unjustly themselves. But our own government shouldn’t be forcing them to — that would violate our 5th Amendment right to due process.

Now here’s the good news: We can stop it if we act now. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, proposed regulations have to be submitted for public comment before becoming effective. At the above link, you can read the proposals and then weigh in.

Maybe your co-worker, family member or someone else would also want to stop this encroachment on workplace fairness. If so, send ‘em to that page too!

Last but not least, write your congressmember and senators (and president), and ask them to bring the EEOC to heel. Travel bans may be more dramatic, but standing up to a few Washington mandarins this time will make the difference for all of us every day at work.