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Supreme Court backs same-sex harassment suit
March 4, 1998
Supreme Court justices listen to the case
Web posted at: 12:59 p.m. EST (1759 GMT)In this story:
- Gay rights advocates praise ruling
- Excerpts from the ruling
- How the Supreme Court got the case
- Related stories and sites
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a case closely watched by gay rights groups, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a federal law that bans on-the-job sexual harassment can apply even when both employees are the same sex.
By a unanimous vote, the court revived the federal lawsuit of Joseph Oncale, a Louisiana man who says he was sexually pursued and harassed by his male supervisor and two other men while working on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig.
Oncale's case had been thrown out by a federal appeals court in New Orleans.
In overturning that decision, the Supreme Court said same-sex harassment can violate an anti-bias law known as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The term "harassment" does not appear in the text of Title VII, but the Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that harassment amounts to discrimination if it creates a "hostile environment" in the workplace.
Oncale "The statute doesn't specifically say that (discrimination) can't be between men (only) or between women (only), so the Supreme Court really had no choice ... but to make the statute apply to everybody equally," said attorney Greta Van Susteren, co-host of the CNN legal affairs program "Burden of Proof."
But the court made clear that someone claiming same-sex harassment must prove that the alleged discrimination was based on gender, and "not merely tinged with offensive sexual connotations."
Gay rights advocates praise ruling
There was no specific mention in the decision about harassment based on sexual orientation. Congress has never outlawed such bias. Nevertheless, Wednesday's ruling was hailed by gay rights advocates:
- "This is a victory for all American workers. We're pleased that the court understands that sex harassment is about power, and that sex orientations of the people involved are irrelevant," said Kim Mills of the Human Rights Campaign.
- Beatrice Dohrn of the Lambda Legal Defense and Educational Fund added: "Had the court carved out an exception for same-sex claims, that would have had a great negative implication for gay rights."
Excerpts from the ruling
"We see no justification ... for a categorical rule excluding same-sex harassment claims from the coverage of Title VII," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.
CNN coverage from Senior Washington Correspondent Charles Bierbauer and "Burden of Proof" co-host Greta Van Susteren
4 min. 30 sec. VXtreme video
His relatively brief, seven-page opinion offered new guidelines for judges nationwide.
The law "does not reach genuine but innocuous differences in the ways men and women routinely interact with members of the same sex and of the opposite sex," Scalia wrote. "The prohibition of harassment on the basis of sex ... forbids only behavior so objectively offensive as to alter the conditions of the victim's employment.
"Conduct that is not severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environment -- an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive -- is beyond Title VII's purview."
Scalia said concerns that Title VII will become "a general civility code for the American workplace" are misguided.
"That risk is no greater for same-sex than for opposite-sex harassment, and is adequately met by careful attention to the requirements of the statute," he said.
"Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace; it is directed only at discrimination because of sex," Scalia said.
Oncale claims he was sexually harassed and assaulted while working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico "We have always regarded that requirement as crucial, and as sufficient to ensure that courts and juries do not mistake ordinary socializing in the workplace -- such as male-on-male horseplay or intersexual flirtation -- for discriminatory conditions of employment," he added.
In a one-paragraph concurring statement, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he joined the ruling "because the court stresses that in every sexual harassment case, the plaintiff must plead and ultimately prove Title VII's statutory requirement that there be discrimination because of sex."
Thomas is a former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chairman whose Supreme Court confirmation hearing was marked by sensational allegations of sexual harassment. He asked no questions and made no comments when Oncale's case was argued in December.
How the Supreme Court got the case
Oncale's lawsuit stems from his four months of work in 1991 as a laborer assigned to a Gulf of Mexico oil rig with Sundowner Offshore Services.
His lawsuit against Sundowner and three men said he was sexually assaulted, battered, touched and threatened with rape by his direct supervisor, John Lyons, and a second supervisor, Danny Pippen.
Another defendant, co-worker Brandon Johnson, was accused of assisting in one of the alleged incidents.
Oncale, who now lives near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said he twice reported the situation to his employer's highest-ranking representative on the job site, but no action was taken. He said he quit, because he feared the harassment would escalate to rape.
All three men named as defendants say no illegal harassment occurred, and portray their conduct as hazing or locker-room horseplay.
A national group of employers, the Equal Employment Advisory Council, told the justices that allowing same-sex harassment lawsuits under the federal law would convert it "into an unmanageably broad code of working behavior."
Senior Washington Correspondent Charles Bierbauer, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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- Sundowner Companies
- American Civil Liberties Union Press Release - Oncale vs. Sundowner Offshore Services
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