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Pastimes : Ask John Galt... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ignacio Mosqueira who wrote (3737)	3/2/1998 1:25:00 AM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 4006

My relationship with Johnny? Sweetly, innocently affectionate on my part, although I cannot speak for John, who undoubtedly has his own fantasies. That is the wonder of cyber!! And you do not intrude, Ignacio. Sometimes I think you see problems and slights where none were intended. Perhaps that is what started the prior debacle? Let us stay clear and calm and amicable, and not repeat it, I hope!!!

To: Ignacio Mosqueira who wrote (3737)	3/4/1998 9:54:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4006

Ignacio, our Supreme Court has just significantly broadened the grounds for sexual harassment, extending it to members of the same sex in some cases. What say you, Ignacio? Supreme Court Allows Same-Sex Harassment Suits 7.34 p.m. ET (035 GMT) March 4, 1998 WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for the first time that same-sex harassment lawsuits can be brought under a 1964 civil rights law barring discrimination in the workplace. In a unanimous ruling, the nation's highest court reversed a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling barring such claims. Instead, the Supreme Court said there was no language in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits men from suing men or women from suing women for sexual harassment on the job. The case before the court involved Joseph Oncale, a Louisiana oil rig worker employed in 1991 by Sundowner Offshore Services Inc. He alleged he was sexually assaulted, battered, touched and threatened with rape by his direct supervisor and another supervisor. The lawsuit was dismissed on appeal, but Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling reinstated it. The case has become one of the most closely watched of the high court's 1997-98 term and has important implications for workplace discrimination, legal experts say. "We see no justification in the statutory language or our precedents for a categorical rule excluding same-sex harassment claims from the coverage of Title VII,'' said Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the court's opinion. He said that some courts have observed that male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was not the "principal evil'' Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII. However, Scalia pointed out that statutory prohibitions "often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils.'' Scalia wrote that Title VII prohibits discrimination because of sex in the "terms'' or "conditions'' of employment. "Our holding that this includes sexual harassment must extend to sexual harassment of any kind that meets the statutory requirements,'' Scalia wrote. He said that the law prohibiting harassment on the basis of sex requires "neither asexuality nor androgyny in the workplace; it forbids only behavior so objectively offensive as to alter the 'conditions' of the victims' employment.'' Scalia emphasized, however, that in same-sex claims, like other harassment cases, there must be careful consideration of the social context in which particular behavior occurs and how it is viewed by the target. "A professional football player's working environment is not severely or pervasively abusive, for example, if the coach smacks him on the buttocks as he heads onto the field - even if the same behavior would reasonably be experienced as abusive by the coach's secretary (male or female) back at the office.'' Scalia said the real impact of behavior often depends on a ''constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships that cannot be captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed.'' He said courts will use "common sense'' and "appropriate sensitivity'' to distinguish between "simple teasing or roughhousing among members of the same sex'' or behavior that could be viewed by a reasonable person to be "severely hostile or abusive.'' Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a one-paragraph concurring opinion. "I concur because the Court stresses that in every sexual harassment case, the plaintiff must plead and ultimately prove Title VII's statutory requirement that there be discrimination 'because of ... sex','' Thomas wrote. Oncale's lawyer Nicholas Canaday of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said he was delighted with the ruling and would start preparing for a trial that could take place by the end of the year. "Our prize is that we now get to prove it (harassment). It's not an ending, it's a beginning,'' he said. The ruling was also hailed by civil rights groups. "We think it's a great decision. It really says that lesbians and gay men are part of American society and are subjected to the same rules and protections in the workplace as everyone else,'' said Matt Coles, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's lesbian and gay rights project in New York. Beatrice Dohrn, legal director of the New York-based Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a lesbian and gay men civil rights group, agreed. The Oncale lawsuit alleged a co-worker assisted in one of three attacks by physically restraining him and that the supervisors made sexually harassing remarks. One supervisor allegedly told Oncale, "I'm going to get you. You're going to give it to me.'' Oncale said he twice reported the situation to his employer's highest-ranking representative on the job site, but no action was taken to halt or punish it. He then quit. The company, the two supervisors and the co-worker all denied that any harassment took place. Their lawyers called the activity "horseplay'' at an all-male work site. c Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved c 1998, News America Digital Publishing, Inc. d/b/a Fox News Online. All rights reserved. Fox News is a registered trademark of 20th Century Fox Film Corp. comments@foxnews.com