Legal Aspects of Ethical Decision-Making in the Event of Sexual Harassment and Discrimination in the Workplace

B George

doi:10.21272/bel.3(4).34-42.2019

Abstract

Sexual harassment-related complaints in the workplaces have increased multifold in the recent past. It is unclear whether this is because of more frequent harassment incidents because victims feel more emboldened to report, or only because more media reports happen on these complaints these days. Regardless, employers have improved both preventive and recovery mechanisms in order to minimize the incidents, or if they happen, support the victims in the best possible manner and also to protect themselves from adverse judicial scrutiny. While courts do not necessarily consider the job related and psychological consequences of harassment cases, organizations also need to worry about these – even as they build lawsuit-proof systems. In this paper, we discuss five historically important US Supreme Court lawsuits that would later have major consequences for how sexual harassment complaints are dealt within our contemporary workplaces. The five pioneering cases that would be discussed are Meritor v. Vinson; Faragher v. City of Boca Raton; Burlington Industries v. Ellerth; Gebser et al. v. Lago Vista Independent School District; and, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education. The paper specifically elaborates on the implications of the court decisions upon these cases for subordinate-supervisor and student-teacher relationships in the US universities. Most harassment cases in the university contexts are not between employees but between employees/faculty and customers/students and this makes straightforward interpretation of court rulings difficult. The resultant ambiguity, along with the interest of universities to protect their reputations by suppressing incidents, make pursuing harassment investigations difficult. While these cases did not succeed in providing a saturated sample for generating a cohesive or comprehensive set of guidelines, they nevertheless guided future court judgements and also organizational policies with respect to managing sexual harassment. In the conclusion section of this paper, the author offers a glimpse into newer forms of sexual harassment, particularly those mediated by social media technologies, and offers ways for organizations to deal with them. Keywords: business ethics, discrimination, sexual harassment, lawsuits, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Universities, Supreme Court, United States.

Highlights

Beginning late 1980s, there is an explosion of scholarly interest in workplace sexual harassment cases (Fitzgerald & Cortina, 2018)
We discussed five US Supreme Court lawsuits that would later have consequences for how sexual harassment complaints are dealt within our educational institutions
We elaborated on the implications of the court decisions upon these cases for student-student, subordinate-supervisor, and studentteacher relationships in the US universities, with special mention on institutional liability

Summary

Introduction

Beginning late 1980s, there is an explosion of scholarly interest in workplace sexual harassment cases (Fitzgerald & Cortina, 2018). The verdict gave an example of a situation in which the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 could be invoked as part of a sexual harassment case (Faragher, 2004) The complaint behind this case was brought to light when, in 1992, Beth Faragher brought to the notice of the City of Bocca Raton that Bill Terry and David Silverman, her supervisors, made her hard to work as a result of their constant sexually tinted advances toward her which included touching parts of her body considered very private. Gebser never mentioned the affair to the school officials In this case, the issue before the court was whether or when a school district can be held liable for damages for a student's sexual harassment by one of the teachers in the district, under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. On May 24, 1999, the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 tight judgement held that school districts could be penalized under title IX for damages for failing to stop student-on-student sexual harassment. The term ‘systemic effect’ would mean repeated occurrences of an event, a head in the sands approach by the school officials, and the absence of institutional processes in the schools to counteract harassment

Implications for Universities

Findings

Conclusion