Sexual Harassment

AuthorRita Rone, Clarice Brantley
Pages662-665

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Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly (1) affects an individual's employment, (2) unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or (3) creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. Sexual harassment charges are among the most frequently litigated workplace claims in the United States.

Although stories of women and men suffering in the workplace by refusing to submit to some sort of sexual activity have appeared in recorded history for centuries, the term sexual harassment is relatively new. The term appeared within the feminist movement in the 1960s and entered common usage in 1978 when the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidelines covering such discrimination. Illegal discrimination, typically based on factors such as race and gender, emerged as a key political and social issue during the latter part of the twentieth century; thus, more attention became focused on sexual harassment in the workplace, media, legal profession, academia, and the public.

The legal foundation for the prohibition on sexual harassment can be found in a law chiefly designed to deal with employment discrimination—Title VII of the Civil

Demonstrators in Watertown, Massachusetts, protesting alledged sexual and racial harassment, May 27, 1996. AP IMAGES


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Rights Act of 1964. The act barred discrimination based on a person's "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." Making hiring or firing decisions based upon these factors became illegal. This law, however, did not specifically address sexual harassment on the job, leaving the issue in a legal gray area.

This changed when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous landmark decision in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986), effectively confirmed the illegality of sexual harassment. The decision's impact was threefold: (1) The ruling confirmed that Title VII outlawed sexual harassment, an issue that had been debated previously. (2) Quid pro quo harassment was defined; that is, harassment implying a trade involving sex, such as a supervisor offering a subordinate a promotion in exchange for sexual favors or denying a job benefit for refusal of the supervisor's advances. (3) The concept of "hostile environment" abuse was established.

A hostile environment occurs when an employee is placed in an uncomfortable or threatening environment because of unwelcome sexual behavior in the workplace. Unwelcome sexual behavior may include telling jokes or stories of a sexual nature, unwelcome touching such as patting or hugging, displaying suggestive posters or calendars, sending letters or electronic mail (e-mail) with text or images of a suggestive or sexually explicit nature, and making suggestive facial expressions. The ruling also cautioned that employers have a responsibility for guarding against harassment, a theme echoed in subsequent decisions. Following Meritor, employers throughout the nation began reviewing their personnel policies and practices in the light of these new definitions of sexual harassment.

KEY EVENTS

During the 1990s, two specific events brought the topic of sexual harassment into the national spotlight. The U.S. Navy's Tailhook scandal, in 1991, captured the nation's attention with reports that female naval officers had been assaulted in a hallway...

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