The Nation - News from March 24, 1988

Federal employees are not immune from lawsuits charging that they have ridiculed or harassed the women they supervise, a federal judge in Newark, N. J., ruled in refusing to dismiss sexual harassment charges against three supervisors at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in East Orange. “To participate in or condone sexual harassment and scoff at its victims is not within the scope of any employee’s official duties,” U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin said. Sarokin ruled in a suit by Denise Owens, a former clerical worker at the hospital. Owens charged that she had been harassed by a staff physician and that supervisors ridiculed her and made jokes. Besides the supervisors, the suit names the doctor and the head of the Veterans Administration.