Civil Rights Act Of 1964 Essay

Prior to legislations that addressed sexual harassment women were subjected to all sorts of treatment and endured it to provide for their family. Sexual harassment dates to slavery during the 18th and 19th century. In the 20th century, many women began working outside the home as secretaries and working in manufacturing plants. Women were subjected to physical and verbal sexual assaults, unfortunately there were no laws in place to protect these women. Hence, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 becomes a law which makes it illegal to discriminate employees based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. Unfortunately, sexual harassment was not included in this legislation. It wouldn’t be until the 1980’s that sexual harassment would be a

City of Boca Raton and Burlington Indus v. Ellerth the US Supreme Court created a new rule for employer liability as it relates to harassment by supervisors. With this rule an employer is liable for an actionable hostile environment created by a supervisor. This case hinged on tangible and non-tangible actions were taken. A tangible action is where a person in a supervisory role is the one harassing. Non- tangible is where the victim remains employed or quits the company. Where a harassing supervisor takes a tangible job action, the employer now faces strict liability. Where no tangible job action is taken, the employer remains vicariously liable for the supervisor's sexual harassment, but may assert an affirmative defense relating to its efforts to prevent the harassment from occurring.

1998- In Onacle v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. the Supreme Court of the United States held that men as well as women could file same-sex harassment suits under Title VII (EEOC, n.d.). The US Supreme Court held that sex discrimination consisting of same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII. However, the court held that the victim must establish that the harassment was severe and there was discrimination because of