exual harassment was first identified as a violation of civil rightsin Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is considered a type of sex discrimination and applies to federal government, state and local governments, labor organizations, employment agencies, and companies that have more than 15 employees.Sexual harassment falls into two categories. Quid pro quo is when a favor or advantage is given in expectation of something in return. When this is applied to sexual harassment, the implication is that an employee will only receive advancement, increased pay, or some other privilege if he or she provides sexual favors. Or the employee was denied such privileges or was even fired because he or she refused to provide such favors.The second form is when a coworker(s) creates a hostile work environment for the victim through sexual intimidation. In effect, sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and verbal and/or physical conduct that affects or interferes with a person’s job performance, though there is no implicit or explicit quid pro quo.Women’s rights organizations have listed harassment behaviors that may fall under the statute: leering, wolf whistles; discussion of one’s partner’s sexual inadequacies; sexual innuendo; comments about women’s bodies; ‘accidentally’ brushing sexual parts of the body; lewd and threatening letters; tales of sexual exploitation; graphic descriptions of pornography; pressure for dates; sexually explicit gestures; unwelcome touching and hugging; sexual sneak attacks; (ex. grabbing breasts or buttocks); sabotaging women’s work; sexist and insulting graffiti; demanding “Hey, baby, give me a smile”; inappropriate invitations (ex., hot tub); sexist jokes and cartoons; hostile put-downs of women; exaggerated, mocking ‘courtesy’; public humiliation; obscene phone calls; displaying pornography in the workplace; insisting that workers wear revealing clothes; inappropriate gifts (ex. lingerie); hooting, sucking, lip-smacking, and animal noises; pressing or rubbing up against the victim; sexual assault; soliciting sexual services; stalking, leaning over; invading a person’s space; indecent exposure.One of the most famous cases involving sexual harassment leading to a hostile work environment happened during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991.Anita Hill, a law professor who had formerly worked alongside Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC), testified that he had made unwanted sexual advances toward her which she rebuffed. He continued to try to initiate conversations with her that included sexual content. At the time, Hill said nothing about the incidents but decided at some point to leave her employment with Thomas.When Thomas was nominated for the court in 1991, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee interviewed Hill and asked her to testify at Thomas’s hearings about the incidents. The evidence was considered crucial because Thomas had been chair of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission which was responsible for enforcing the sexual harassment laws. In fact, while he was chair, the US Supreme Court had decided a case called Merritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986), in which the court ruled that the sexual harassment did not have to be physical or quid pro quo in nature. It simply had to be “unwelcome” and sufficiently “severe and pervasive” to “create an abusive working environment.” Anita Hill argued that this was exactly the situation she faced. She questioned the qualifications of Thomas to sit on the Court.The Hill-Thomas hearings, as they came to be known, devolved into great political theater involving sex, race, and an increasingly politically polarized US Senate. Thomas accused the senators of holding a “high-tech lynching” of him. Some women accused some on the all-male committee of “blaming the victim,” that is, Hill. Eventually, the Judiciary Committee and the Senate approved Thomas’s appointment. But the Hill-Thomas hearings, or “collective group therapy session” as some political commentators called them, educated the country in a very short time about the statutes of sexual harassment. Women began to bring court cases of sexual harassment in their workplaces. Hoping to avoid the legal fallout, companies and institutions began to hold workshops on appropriate workplace conduct.The Hill-Thomas hearings accelerated the cause of advocates for women’s protection against sexual harassment. Some commentators believe that it opened the gates to the election of many women legislators in the following year because Anita Hill was perceived to be treated badly in the pervasively male environment of Washington, DC.How did the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings change the way people viewed the issue of sexual harassment, Further, given recent events, how significant is this problem todayResponse Instructions: 100 words in response to the question, using some of the information in the background above.Social SciencePolitical Science POLSCI 19537
