Re: Oncale Case

Linda Purrington (lpurring@earthlink.net)
Mon, 09 Mar 1998 21:54:58 -0800


What we need is a general reenforcement of the thread in case law that
says that discrimination based on the sex of the victim is
discrimination forbidden by Title IX and Title VII. In other words, some
courts hold that if boys and girls both bait a girl, then the baiters
are sexually harassing the child; and if school-associated adults allow
this to occur in a school setting, they are discriminating against the
child on the basis of (her) sex. This policy can be elaborated to
understand harassment of gays as harassment based on the sex of the
student victim. The harassment of heterosexual men by other
heterosexual men often take the form of gay-baiting as well, and is also
based on the male dominated gradient of power in society. Linda
Purrington <lpurring@earthlink.net>

_______________________________________

Darcy Lees wrote:
>
> One other point, to my knowledge there has not been a significant
> increase in sexual orientation complaints since the 1994 requirement in
> WA state that districts have sexual harassment policies which would
> cover same sex sexual harassment. A number of districts wrote broad
> based harassment policies which covered sexual orientation as well as
> sex and race.
>
> Darcy Lees <DLees@inspire.ospi.wednet.edu>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> > ----------
> > From: PaulEdison[SMTP:PaulEdison@aol.com]
> > Reply To: edequity@tristram.edc.org
> > Sent: Thursday, March 05, 1998 7:40 PM
> > To: edequity@tristram.edc.org
> > Subject: Oncale Case
> >
> >
> >
> > Does anyone know how likely it is that the
> > Supreme Court's decision this week on the Oncale
> > same-sex harassment case will result in cases
> > arising from _sexual-orientation_ harassment?
> >
> > I've heard this in some of the coverage, but was
> > under the impression that previously (including
> > in the OCR Guidance on sexual harassment) sex-
> > orientation harassment has definitely _not_ been
> > covered.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Paul Edison, Gender Issues Education
> > Curriculum/Video for Grades 6-12
> > <PaulEdison@aol.com>
> >


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