| |
Legally, sexual
harassment is a recognized form of sex discrimination. There
are two distinct categories of sexual harassment: quid pro
quo harassment and hostile environment harassment.
Quid pro quo sexual harassment takes place where some benefit
is conditioned upon the receipt of sexual favors or some punishment
is applied for refusing to comply with a demand for sexual
favors. In the educational setting, quid pro quo harassment
occurs when grades, credits, graduation or other benefits
are made to depend upon sexual favors.
Hostile environment sexual harassment involves circumstances
that create an intimidating, hostile, offensive or abusive
educational environment so severe, persistent or pervasive
that it alters the conditions under which a student attends
school. A “hostile environment” requires substantially
more than offensive or thoughtless behavior. Instead, the
conduct or circumstance must be severe, persistent and pervasive.
Quid pro quo sexual harassment may involve a single incident.
Sexually hostile or intimidating environments are characterized
by multiple and varied combinations and frequencies of offensive
exposures, although a single incident may be so severe as
to constitute actionable sexual harassment. The totality of
circumstances must be viewed from the perspective of a reasonable
person’s reaction to a similar environment under essentially
like or similar circumstances to determine whether harassment
occurred or existed.
Harassment could involve members of the same sex or different
sexes. Sexual harassment can be engaged in by college faculty,
staff, employees, other students (from Smith or visiting from
other schools) and outsiders (visitors, vendors and contractors,
for example).
Sexual harassment
covers a wide range of conduct–all of it illegal. A
student who has been led to believe she** must have sex with
her professor to keep her grade (recommendation, internship
or similar evaluation) has been sexually harassed. A student
who is pinched or fondled against her will by another student
has been sexually harassed, as has one whose path is blocked
while others act as if they were going to grab her.
The following are excerpts from some court decisions where
the issue of a hostile work environment has been adjudicated.
One must extrapolate from these holdings to adapt them to
the higher education environment, as they are mostly derived
from workplace settings.
The court found that a hostile working environment existed
where the chief of the police department
made daily inquiries regarding his employee’s sex life
and used vulgar language when addressing her. The harassment
was held sufficiently pervasive since the defendant also made
repeated requests for sexual intercourse over a two-year period.
The Eleventh Circuit also lent meaning to the term “unwelcome”
by defining unwelcome conduct as (1) conduct that the employee
does not solicit or entice in any way, and (2) conduct that
the employee regards as undesirable or offensive.
Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897 (11th Cir. 1982),
p. 56Courts
must examine the pervasiveness and severity of the harasser’s
conduct, not the alteration in the conditions of employment.
The required showing of severity or seriousness of the harassing
conduct varies inversely with the pervasiveness or frequency
of the conduct. In evaluating working environment sexual harassment
claims, courts must focus on the perspective of the victim,
that is, on what “the reasonable woman” would
find offensive.
Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991), p. 56
The conduct constituted an extensive and pervasive “visual
assault on the sensibilities of female workers at JSI that
did not relent during working hours” (photos of nudes
were in every nook and cranny of the work areas) and thus
supported a hostile environment sexual harassment claim. The
presence of pictures of nude and partially nude women, along
with the sexual comments and joking, “creates and contributes
to a sexually hostile work environment…abusive to a
woman because of her sex.” Also the court found that
the sexual harassment policy and procedure was ineffective
because of the largely unsympathetic response to complaints.
Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc., 760 F. Supp.
1486 (M.D. Fla. 1991), p. 62
A jury’s award of $140,000 for a nurse retaliated against
by her employer is sustained. The nurse claimed that the hospital
at which she worked laid her off because she complained of
a hostile work environment created by lesbian coworkers and
administrators. The jury reasonably concluded that she was
targeted for termination because she was a heterosexual and
that there was favoritism toward employees of the same sexual
inclination, even if such favoritism did not result in an
actual lesbian relationship. The employer must reinstate the
nurse to her former job as associate director of nursing or
an equivalent position because the D.C. Human Rights Act permits
a claim of reprisal if the plaintiff had a reasonable good
faith belief that favoritism existed, that a complaint was
lodged about it and that, in this case, the complainant was
fired in a contrived reduction-in-force because of her complaints.
The nurse need not prove the sexual inclination of any of
her colleagues, but only that she “had a reasonable
belief” that her colleagues were homosexual or bisexual
and engaged in “sexual orientation discrimination.”
Green v. Howard University, No. 1-91-CA-04194 (D.C. Cir.
1992), p.58
A supervisor’s sexually abusive statements to his female
employees and braggadocio about his sexual prowess to his
male employees constituted sex discrimination actionable under
Title VII. The employer’s contention that the supervisor
harassed both male and female employees alike, and therefore,
that he could not have discriminated against the husband and
wife who worked for him based on gender is terminally flawed.
The supervisor’s incessant behavior was sufficiently
pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create
an abusive working environment. Further, the employer’s
argument raises the specter of the bisexual harasser who makes
unwanted sexual overtures to both men and women. Where a harasser
violates both men and women, “it is not unthinkable
to argue that each individual who is harassed is being treated
badly because of gender.”
Chiapuzio v. BLT Operating Corp., No. 92-CV-0277-B (D.
Wyo. 1993), p.66–67
A man may bring a Title VII action on the basis of an allegation
that three female co-workers, acting in concert, filed false
and malicious sexual harassment claims against him.
Jones v. Aspin, No. 93-1598 (E.D. Pa. 1994), p.64
An employee can sue under Title VII for hostile environment
sexual harassment if her supervisor did not try to stop false
rumors that she was sleeping with him. The employee claimed
that as a result of the rumors, she was treated as an “outcast”
by co-workers, received low marks from other supervisors in
“integrity” and “interpersonal relations,”
and was passed over for promotions.
Spain v. Gallegos, No. 93-3467 (3rd Cir. June 1994), p.64
A sexual harassment hostile environment claim need not be
based on acts that are explicitly sexual in nature. An anesthesiology
resident at the university’s hospital and medical school
claimed that the department chairman subjected her to a sexually
hostile environment that led to emotional trauma and stress.
The resident also claimed that the chairman gave prospective
employers negative reviews in retaliation for her filing sexual
harassment charges.
Smith v. St. Louis University, No. 96-2519 EM (8th Cir.
March 24, 1997), p. 85Federal
law that applies to educational settings also recognizes discrimination
on the basis of sex. The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S.
Department of Education has produced guidelines that include
prohibitions of sexual harassment in schools and institutions
of higher education. Smith College has developed this procedure
to assist students in these matters.
Back to Top
>
If a student has been assaulted or raped, immediate contact
with the college’s Department of Public Safety is recommended.
The department is staffed, trained and equipped to offer support,
options for action, and transportation for follow-up attention.
| For less extreme forms of sexual harassment: |
|
|
An initial course of action for any student
who believes that she is being sexually harassed is for
her to tell or otherwise inform the harasser that the
conduct is unwelcome and must stop |
| |
|
| However, often this course of action may
not be feasible, it may be unsuccessful, or the student
may be uncomfortable dealing with the matter in this manner. |
|
|
To encourage students to come forward with their concerns,
the college provides several channels of communication
and information. There are both informal and formal complaint
resolution procedures.
|
|
|
About
the Handbook
Table
of Contents
Introduction
Master's
Program, Summer
Master's
Program, Winter
The
Academic and Field Work Performance Standing
Committee
Administrative
Policies & Procedures
Other
School Policies
|
