Managing a Diverse Workforce 97
and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when (1) sub-
mission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or
condition of an individual ’ s employment, (2) submission to or rejection
of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment
decisions affecting an individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or
effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual ’ s work performance
or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.
There are two forms of sexual harassment: quid pro quo harass-
ment and hostile environment harassment. Quid pro quo harassment exists
when the employer places sexual demands on the employee as a condi-
tion of that person ’ s receiving employment benefi ts — for example, when
a supervisor requires that a subordinate go out on a date as a condition
of receiving a promotion or pay increase. The reverse is also considered
quid pro quo harassment. For example, because a subordinate will not
date a supervisor, the supervisor retaliates by assigning work of a less
desirable nature to the employee or lowers the employee ’ s performance
evaluation rating.
Hostile environment harassment does not require the loss of a tangible
employment benefi t. Instead, the focus is on unwelcome contact that is
suffi ciently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the employee ’ s
employment and create an abusive working environment. In Ellison v.
Brady (1991), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals created a “ reasonable
woman ” standard that it applied to the issue of whether sexually ori-
ented conduct constituted a hostile or offensive environment. The court
believed that it was important to examine the behavior from the perspective
of a “ reasonable woman ” since “ a sex - blind reasonable person standard
tends to be male - biased and tends to systematically ignore the experiences
of women. ” Since research demonstrates that women and men differ in
their responses to sexually oriented behavior, the court believed that it
was inappropriate to use the viewpoint of a man (or men in general) to
determine whether a reasonable woman would have found the conduct
to be unwelcome, a requirement that the woman must meet in order to
prevail. The standard moved from the “ reasonable person ” perspective
to the “ reasonable victim ” perspective.
In Harris v. Forklift Systems (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
victims need not show they suffered serious psychological injury as a result
of the harassment in order to prevail in court.
In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court heard three cases dealing with sexual
harassment: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Faragher v. Boca Raton , and
Burlington Industries v. Ellerth.