Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [149]
The Supreme Court announced its unanimous decision in February 1992 and ruled that Christine Franklin could sue for damages. Many of the lawyers who worked on the case were surprised at the decision, which in no way restricted the amount recoverable under the Franklin suit. Clearly, the impact of the October 1991 hearing was on the minds of the commentators if not the minds of the Court. Despite the despicable facts which led to the lawsuit, the case had received relatively little attention prior to the hearing. Upon the announcement of the decision it became a cause for celebration by women who had prior to October 1991 taken the fact of sexual harassment for granted.
I was pleased with the outcome of the suit but was all the more angry with the Bush administration, an administration which claimed to be sensitive to the problem, but which was unwilling to hold a school system accountable for neglecting to protect young victims. The hypocrisy was underscored by President Bush’s assurances to Paula Coughlin that he would see to it that her assailants were punished. That promise, too, proved to be empty.
Two years after the October 1991 hearing, the Supreme Court rendered the second sexual harassment decision in its history. Not since 1986, when the Court concluded that sexual harassment was a form of sex discrimination prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, had it ruled on a workplace sex harassment claim. Teresa Harris brought the suit against her employer, Forklift Systems, Inc. She alleged that the company’s president, Charles Hardy, subjected her to numerous sexual and sexist comments: “You’re a woman, what do you know” and “We need a man as the rental manager.” Hardy suggested that Harris and he “go to the Holiday Inn to negotiate her raise.” He asked female employees to retrieve change from his front pocket and threw objects on the ground and asked them to bend over and pick them up. Hardy defended his behavior as joking. He apologized but did not stop.
Teresa Harris lost her lawsuit at trial, even though the court ruled that she was, in fact, offended by the behavior and reasonably should have been. Nevertheless, it concluded that Hardy’s vulgar behavior was not illegal because Harris’ job performance had not suffered as a result. Again the suit was about damages. In essence the court ruled that because Harris could take the behavior and still perform, she had to continue to take the behavior and could not be compensated.
By the time the Harris case was argued, the second female Supreme Court justice had taken her position on the Court. Ruth Bader Ginsberg heard the oral argument in the Harris case and actively participated in questioning the attorneys. She also traded comments with her colleagues, reminding Justice Antonin Scalia that a comment directed at him suggesting that he knew little because he was a man had far less impact than a comment directed at a woman suggesting lack of intelligence because of her gender. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the opinion, for, again, a unanimous court, in the Harris case. She concluded that “Title VII comes into play before the harassing conduct leads to a nervous breakdown.” She added that the law provides relief for a “discriminatorily abusive work environment” even when it does not “detract from employees’ job performance.”
The Court’s opinion decisively affirmed the ban against sexual harassment in the workplace and strengthened the definition of what was actionable under the law. I was overjoyed at the speed with which the Court rendered its decision. To me it sent a clear message to the trial courts around the country that the Supreme Court took the problem of sexual harassment seriously. Even the separate opinion by Justice Scalia recognized the fact that further understanding about the problem was necessary before the Court could draw hard definitions which effectively eliminated lawsuits.
I agreed to comment on the case on the CBS Morning News and NBC’s Today