A Stride Against Job Harassment
It is not surprising that all nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday in handing down a ruling that will make it easier for workers to prove sexual harassment on the job. Rather, given the stark record in this case, what is surprising is that lower courts had denied the claim.
Teresa Harris sued her ex-boss, Charles Hardy, after resigning in 1987 as a manager at Forklift Systems in Nashville, Tenn. She alleged that Forklift had violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars job discrimination on the basis of gender. The Supreme Court, in an earlier decision, said the law also forbids sexual harassment that creates a hostile work environment.
In the past, plaintiffs in these cases usually claimed an injury--for example, psychological trauma or being fired after refusing to date the boss. In this case the court had to decide whether a plaintiff must claim such an injury to prove harassment. Harris claimed only a hostile environment, not injury.
That Harris endured harassment of the basest sort seemed beyond question. The federal magistrate who originally heard this case found that Hardy asked Harris to retrieve coins from his front pants pocket, suggested that they go to a motel to negotiate a pay raise and asked whether she had won a sales contract by providing sexual favors. In the presence of other employees, he called her “a dumb-ass woman.” He also would threw objects on the ground and ask female employees to pick them up as he commented on their clothing.
Even after documenting this conduct, the magistrate dismissed Harris’ harassment claim because she had suffered no psychological injury as a result.
A district court upheld the magistrate’s ruling and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, although other circuits have used different standards.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court decided otherwise, unanimously and thoughtfully. “So long as the environment would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile or abusive, there is no need for it also to be psychologically injurious,” the ruling held. The decision significantly expands the court’s previous harassment standard. This so-called “reasonable person” test is not only wise, it’s long overdue.
