Supreme Court Recognizes Sexual Harassment as Violation of Title VII
In the case of Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, decided on this day, the Supreme Court recognized sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Court held that Title VII was “not limited to ‘economic’ or ‘tangible’ discrimination,’ finding that the intention of Congress was “to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women in employment . . .”
The concept of sexual harassment as a violation of Title VII originated with law professor Catharine McKinnon (see her book, below).
MacKinnon was also the co-originator, with author-activist Andrea Dworkin, of the concept that pornography violated the civil rights of women. Indianapolis enacted an ordinance embodying that idea, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on August 27, 1985. (The Supreme Court denied cert. to an appeal, leaving the lower court’s decision standing.)
Sexual harassment exploded into one of the most important national issues on October 5, 2017 when the New York Times published an article on how the powerful Hollywood producer/director Harvey Weinstein used his power in the film industry, along with his great financial resources to cover up his many instances of sexual abuse of women. The New Yorker magazine published an additional powerful story on Weinstein on October 10th. Within weeks, a national movement had developed, under the name of @MeToo. Over the next year, a large number of famous and powerful people were exposed as sexual predators, and many lost their positions. On May 25, 2018, Weinstein was arrested by New York City police on charges of rape.
The Court: “In sum, we hold that a claim of ‘hostile environment’ sex discrimination is actionable under Title VII. . . .”
Read MacKinnon’s pioneering work: Catharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination (1979)
Read the book by the two New York Times reporters who investigated Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuses: Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement (2019)
Read the Media Coalition report on MacKinnon’s work on pornography: http://mediacoalition.org/files/Catharine-MacKinnon-report.pdf
Learn more about the conflict between freedom of sexual expression and sexual harassment: Leigh Ann Wheeler, How Sex Became a Civil Liberty (2013)