Emerging Trends in Employment Law: How Courts are Interpreting Harassment "Because of Sex" Since Oncale

Christine W. Lewis

---

DOI: 10.2190/1WKV-1KDM-U4M7-WD1Q

Abstract

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the courts have had the most difficulty determining discrimination based on sex. Consequently, the federal circuit courts of appeal developed inconsistent results regarding whether same-sex harassment was covered prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.. This article examines case law on sexual harassment prior to 1998 and the Court s decision in Oncale: that same-sex harassment is actionable under Title VII. The article also describes how the courts are using Oncale s because of sex requirement to shape current sexual harassment case law.

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.