Key Legal Highlights 1950s-2010s

  • In the 1950s, no legal protection against sexual harassment existed and there was no term for sexual harassment.
  • The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and Title VII of the Act asserted that it was “unlawful employment practice” for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions or privileges or employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
  • The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was created under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enforce Title VII.
  • In 1967, with Executive Order 11375, President Lyndon B. Johnson added “sex” to the anti-discrimination list for affirmative action for the federal government and government contractors. Previously, discrimination in hiring and employment was only illegal on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.
  • In 1971, the United States Supreme Court decided its first sex discrimination case that utilized the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Title VII. In Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation, the court ruled in favor of Ida Phillips, who had been denied employment because she was the mother of pre-school age children. It was declared discrimination “because of sex” because the same rules did not apply to men with preschool age children.
  • The EEOC received authority in 1972 to conduct its own enforced litigation, and women started coming forward with their cases. A campaign against sexual advances in the workplace flowed out of legal disputes against sexual abuse and rape.
  • Title IX of the Education Amendments was issued in 1972. This prohibited sexual discrimination in federally-funded education, including athletics. Later, Title IX was used as a basis for defining sexual harassment of students by teachers as illegal.
  • In 1974, the district court of the District of Columbia heard what is considered the first sexual harassment case in America, even though the term “sexual harassment” was not used. In Barnes v. Train, Paulette Barnes brought forth a claim when she was fired because she wouldn’t sleep with her boss. However, the court decided this was not sexual discrimination or retaliation and dismissed her case.
  • Sexual harassment finally got a name in 1975. A group of women, called Working Women United, at Cornell University used the term in their support of a woman who was filing a claim for unemployment after she quit her job due to sexual touching by her boss.
  • South Dakota in 1975 was the first state to declare assault of a former girlfriend or wife as illegal. Previous to this, it was not considered a crime in America.
  • In 1977, a federal appeals court reversed the 1974 case of Paulette Barnes, ruling that a manager retaliating against her for rejecting his sexual advances was indeed guilty of sexual harassment and violated Title VII.
  • The Pregnancy Discrimination Act enacted in 1978 prohibited employers from discrimination against women on the basis of pregnancy.
  • In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter’s administration began using Executive Order 11375 (that affirmative action applied to gender as well as race, color, religion, and national origin) against corporations. Companies responded with lawsuits against the government.
  • Westinghouse Electric Corporation settled a case with employees in 1980 that alleviated some of the company’s discriminatory pregnancy policies and served as a model for other cases to come. It took court cases and lawsuits throughout the 1980s to enact the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. However, maternity leave was only offered in 12 states.
  • The EEOC stated and began to enforce in 1980 that unwanted sexual advances were a type of sexual discrimination illegal under Title VII. The commission wrote the first “Guidelines on Discrimination Because of Sex” and declared that sexual harassment violated Title VII and created a hostile environment in the workplace.
  • In 1981, Sandra Bundy’s appeal of her 1977 lawsuit in the case of Bundy v. Jackson resulted in the first federal appeals court ruling that sexual insults and advances in the workplace were discrimination under Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964.
  • The proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) stating “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex,” was not ratified by its June 1982 deadline.
  • In 1986 the Supreme Court upheld the case of Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Company against the victim, Vivienne Rabidue. Seen as strong, capable, and ambitious, the prevailing view was that the sexual harassment she experienced was not damaging.
  • The Supreme Court reviewed their first sexual harassment case in 1986 with Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson. The court recognized the sexual harassment of Mechelle Vinson as a valid claim. Further, employers were liable if they knew about unwanted sexual advances in the workplace. The case set the precedent for the “hostile environment” definition of sexual harassment.
  • Barbara Landgraf was harassed from 1984 to 1986 by her colleague at USI Film Products in Texas. She was found to be a victim of sexual harassment and a hostile workplace when she filed a case in 1989 but wasn’t granted any compensation because the law at that time didn’t authorize recovery of damages.
  • In 1991, in Ellison v. Brady, the court decided in favor of Kerry Ellison that the standard in sexual harassment cases must be defined by the perspective of a “reasonable woman” not a “reasonable person.” This case redefined sexual harassment by considering the victim’s point of view rather than standard convention.
  • Crude language and pornography were ruled a violation of Title VII in 1991 in Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards.
  • The 1991 Hill v. Thomas hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of unwanted sexual advances, increased the general public’s awareness of sexual harassment.
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1991 passed and Congress modified Title VII, allowing sexual harassment victims the right to a jury trial in federal court and the right to seek damage awards such as back pay, reinstatement, and compensatory and punitive damages.
  • The Navy Tailhook scandal in 1992, where male navy and marine personnel harassed eighty-three women, including navy officers, at a Hilton Hotel convention in Las Vegas, led to the loss by the Hilton of a $5.2 million lawsuit for failing to provide security. Several offending navy officers lost their jobs.
  • In 1993, the Supreme Course case of Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. put a stop to the requirement for victims to prove that harassment destroyed them mentally and physically. However, the court clarified that an offensive joke or comment was not grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit—it had to be something more traumatic.
  • The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, giving men and women job-protected, unpaid leave for care of a newborn, newly adopted child, ill family member, and for their own serious illness.
  • With the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, past sexual history of the person bringing forth the harassment charge was limited as evidence. The act did permit the use of sexual history of the harasser accused of assault.
  • Barbara Landgraf appealed her 1989 case, but the Supreme Court ruled in 1994’s Landgraf v. USI Film Products that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 only applied to future cases and wasn’t retroactive.
  • In 1995, one of the largest settlements in a harassment case against a corporation at the time occurred when Chevron Corporation’s Chevron Information Technology Company settled for $2.2 million with four women who experienced sexual advances and pornography in the workplace.
  • In 1996, Chevron settled for $7.4 million to 777 women for sexual harassment and discrimination and was required to establish diversity councils, hire high level ombudspeople, and institute career guidance programs.
  • In 1997, in Farley v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company, the U.S. Appeals Court ruled that if a company had a strict sexual harassment policy, it wouldn’t be held liable for harassment in its workplace unless it was reported and the company did not take action.
  • 1998 the Supreme Court ruled on guidance for mandatory training on sexual harassment for businesses and governments. However, it was up to individual states to enforce the ruling and it took seven years for the first state, California, to do so.
  • In 1998, in Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth and Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, the Supreme Court ruled that employers and employees were liable for sexual harassment even if threats and favors weren’t followed through with, though employers could defend themselves if they showed steps were taken to prevent the behavior.
  • Paula Jones brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton, but the case was settled out of court in 1998 for $850,000.
  • In 2005, in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that punishment for reporting sexual harassment and sex discrimination was illegal according to Title IX.
  • Congress passed the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2005 that gave federal funds to help victims of sexual violence and sexual assault.
  • A landmark anti-retaliation claim came to the Supreme Court in 2006 in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company v. White. Sheila White sued for suffering demotion and suspension without pay after she complained about sexual harassment. Her win became a precedent that an action other than full dismissal from the job could be considered an “adverse employment act.”
  • In 2007, Anucha Browne Sanders, an executive for the New York Knicks, sued Madison Square Garden et al. and was awarded $11.6 million in punitive damages for sexual harassment and retaliation.
  • In 2007, in Baldwin v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, Susan Baldwin sued for a hostile work environment and retaliation when she was fired for reporting harassment. Her evidence of lewd name-calling and antics was deemed “not sufficiently outrageous as a matter of Alabama law” and her case was dismissed.
  • The 2009 case of Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County protected employees, such as Vicky Crawford, who cooperated with an internal probe rather than reported on her own, from retaliation.
  • The largest judgment in U.S. history, $168 million, was awarded to a single victim in 2012 to Ani Chopourian in Chopourian v. Catholic Healthcare West.
  • From 2016 to 2017, 450 cases of sexual misconduct by doctors were brought before courts and regulators. Half of those doctors still practice medicine and some that were criminally convicted have returned to practice.
  • In 2018, sexual harassment training was not required for companies in 46 states. Only California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York mandated it.
  • Similar to Hill v. Thomas almost thirty years prior, sexual harassment became a public debate when Christine Blasey Ford testified in 2018 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.