Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A United States Perspective

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 29-85
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Kelly ◽  
David D. Kadue ◽  
Robert J. Mignin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Law ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Harassment Law

Sexual harassment litigation has increased significantly within the United States. It is a cause of action that was created by the judiciary to enable an employee to work in an atmosphere free from a sexually hostile environment. Some parameters of U.S. sexual harassment law are still unclear, but the law now applies to men and women, and the burden of proof has gradually been eased. Under judge-made law, an employer will always be liable when harassment culminates in a tangible employment detriment. The employer is also automatically liable when a supervisor creates a hostile environment, unless the employer can prove that it has taken reasonable steps to prevent or correct harassment and that the employee unreasonably failed to use the employer's anti-harassment procedures. Employers are also liable for harassment perpetrated by supervisors, co-workers and non-employees if the employer is negligent in failing to prevent or correct harassment. Employers are thus well advised to formulate and enforce an anti-harassment workplace policy that allows a complainant to have a thorough, impartial and prompt investigation of any allegation of harassment. Complainants can elect to use federal-law and state-law remedies for sexual harassment/discrimination. The state law, unlike the federal, may allow unlimited tort-like damages. A complainant may also allege common law causes of action such as infliction of emotional distress.

scholarly journals Equality

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-221
Author(s):  
Catharine A. MacKinnon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Sexual Harassment Law

The distinction between formal and substantive equality is theorized then illustrated by sexual harassment law in the United States and in international legal developments. The convergence of sexual harassment concepts with prostitution, hence of sex discrimination law with the Nordic/Equality Model, is explained and explored.

Resisting the Enforcement of Sexual Harassment Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine E. Tinkler
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Compliance ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Harassment Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sexual Harassment Policy ◽  
Harassment Policy

Most people in the United States believe that sexual harassment should be illegal and that enforcement is necessary. In spite of such widespread support for antiharassment regulations, sexual harassment policy training provokes backlash and has been shown to activate traditional gender stereotypes. Using in-depth interviews and participant observations of sexual harassment policy training sessions, this study uncovers the micro-level mechanisms that underlie ambivalence about the enforcement of sexual harassment law. I find that while the different locations of men and women in the status hierarchy lead to different manifestations of resistance, gender stereotypes are used to buttress perceptions that sexual harassment laws threaten norms of interaction and status positions that men and women have an interest in maintaining. The research has implications for understanding the role of law in social change, legal compliance, and the potential/limits of law for reducing inequality.

scholarly journals Legal design and reporting harassment: preliminary considerations on the comparative efficacy of u.s. and Brazilian sexual harassment law

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustus B. Cochran III
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Efficacy ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Legal Responses ◽  
Sexual Harassment Law ◽  
Compare And Contrast ◽  
The U.S

Laws against sexual harassment have been called “a feminist success story” (Zippel 2003). The creation of legal prohibitions against the histo ic and still widespread abuse of sexual harassment indeed represents a stirring story of innovation, both in the United States,where the problem was first dealt with as a legal matter, and now as a nearly universally recognized social problem. The effectiveness of these laws, however, remains a contentious subject, especially the question of whether policies are shaped to realistically deal with the conduct of perpetrators and the way targets actually respond. The variations in national laws present an opportunity to compare and contrast the contours of different legal responses to this problem and perhaps identify policy designs that are most effective in combating this misconduct. To this end, this paper sketches the different legal prohibitions in place in the U.S. and Brazil and explores the likely counter-reactions that these policies might encourage in sexual harassment victims.

Rediscovering Blackstone: wpływ Williama Blackstone’a na rozwój amerykańskiej nauki prawa w recepcji Alberta W. Alschulera

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-185
Author(s):  
Edyta Sokalska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common

The reception of common law in the United States was stimulated by a very popular and influential treatise Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone, published in the late 18th century. The work of Blackstone strengthened the continued reception of the common law from the American colonies into the constituent states. Because of the large measure of sovereignty of the states, common law had not exactly developed in the same way in every state. Despite the fact that a single common law was originally exported from England to America, a great variety of factors had led to the development of different common law rules in different states. Albert W. Alschuler from University of Chicago Law School is one of the contemporary American professors of law. The part of his works can be assumed as academic historical-legal narrations, especially those concerning Blackstone: Rediscovering Blackstone and Sir William Blackstone and the Shaping of American Law. Alschuler argues that Blackstone’s Commentaries inspired the evolution of American and British law. He introduces not only the profile of William Blackstone, but also examines to which extent the concepts of Blackstone have become the basis for the development of the American legal thought.

“La Idea Mueve” (The Idea Moves Us)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela González
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Scientific Racism ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment

The concluding chapter explains how race had served defenders of slavery by providing them with an excuse to hold men and women in bondage. For their inhumane treatment of Africans during the Age of Enlightenment to be justified, their humanity needed to be ideologically stripped away—scientific racism served that purpose. Racist theories also kept other groups in subaltern positions. Mexicans with mestizo, mulatto, and Indian genealogies experienced racialization in the United States. Simply put, Americans, proud of their liberal political heritage and their democratic institutions, needed to see oppressed groups as somehow sub-human in order to reconcile their political beliefs with the nation’s less than egalitarian realities. It is for this reason that the politics of redemption practiced by Mexican immigrant and Mexican American activists merits attention.

The Politics of US Latino Literature and American Realism

2019 ◽  
pp. 231-248
Author(s):  
Ramón J. Guerra
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Spanish American War ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Latino Literature ◽  
The Common ◽  
Racial Ethnic

This chapter examines the development of Latino literature in the United States during the time when realism emerged as a dominant aesthetic representation. Beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and including the migrations resulting from the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Mexican Revolution (1910), Latinos in the United States began to realistically craft an identity served by a sense of displacement. Latinos living in the United States as a result of migration or exile were concerned with similar issues, including but not limited to their predominant status as working-class, loss of homeland and culture, social justice, and racial/ethnic profiling or discrimination. The literature produced during the latter part of the nineteenth century by some Latinos began to merge the influence of romantic style with a more socially conscious manner to reproduce the lives of ordinary men and women, draw out the specifics of their existence, characterize their dialects, and connect larger issues to the concerns of the common man, among other realist techniques.

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