An administrative dilemma: Sexual harassment and liability

Conservative estimates suggest that 40% of working women and 15% of their male counterparts have experienced some form of sexual harassment; and law enforcement personnel are no exception. Police officers are expected to adhere to the highest ethical standards and are subjected to greater public scrutiny than civilians. With criminal and civil remedies readily available to deter police misconduct, police agencies should be establishing policies that take a strong, pro-active stance against sexual harassment in the workplace. Surprisingly, though, 34% of police agencies in this country are still without formal policies regulating such behavior. This article is a guide to the legislation and case law that regulates those behaviours. Recommendations for policy formulation and implementation also are included. sexual harassment in the workplace presents a clear and present danger to law enforcement agencies. A recent survey found that thirty-four percent of law enforcement agencies in the United States have yet to formulate a written sexual harassment policy.     

Changing Perceptions of Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workforce, 1987–94

Recent criticisms of sexual harassment law and workplace training policies contend that they have "sanitized" the workplace through their stigmatization of sexual expression that does not amount to actual discrimination. This study assesses some of the empirical foundations for those normative arguments. Using data from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board's 1987 and 1994 surveys, we examine differences over time in federal workers' perceptions of what types of behavior constitute sexual harassment. The article draws on a sociolegal theory of the endogenous nature of law as well as research on perceptions of sexual harassment. We hypothesize that, because of increased attention to sexual harassment, and to the hostile environment theory specifically, by scholars, judges, and the news media, and related policy changes in workplace training programs, federal workers likely came to view a wider range of sexual conduct as constituting harassment during this time period. The results support our expectations. We also find that sexual harassment training in their agency increased workers' likelihood of viewing both hostile environment behavior and quid pro quo behavior as harassment.     

Liability for sexual harassment in criminal justice agencies

This article focuses on sexual harassment in criminal justice agencies from a legal perspective. The article briefly describes sexual harassment cases that address agency liability decided by the United States Supreme Court, discussing the standards of liability articulated in Burlington Industries Inc. v. Ellerth (1998), Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (1998), and Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986). A more precise understanding of when agencies are liable for the actions of their subordinates is developed through an examination of lower federal court decisions. Trends in the law are identified, as case law is categorized according to harassment by supervisors and co-workers. The article concludes by exploring the policy implications flowing from court decisions and by calling for further research on this troubling aspect of the criminal justice workplace.     

"People Are Too Quick to Take Offense": The Effects of Legal Information and Beliefs on Definitions of Sexual Harassment

Using data from a nationwide study of sexual harassment in the United States' federal workplace, this article investigates how legal understanding, opinions about the regulation of sexual harassment, and social status affect whether people define uninvited sexual jokes or remarks as harassment. The results indicate that how people define sexual harassment is directly related to the extent to which they view sexual harassment rules as ambiguous and threatening to workplace norms. Moreover, results show that while women generally define sexual harassment more broadly than men, they actually resist defining sexual jokes or remarks as harassment. Finally, knowledge of the workplace sexual harassment policy moderates the effect of beliefs on definitions of sexual harassment. These findings suggest a complexity in the way people reconcile their knowledge of the law with their personal views about power and social interaction in the workplace.     

Idle Rights: Employees' Rights Consciousness and the Construction of Sexual Harassment Policies

This article analyzes women's legal consciousness in responding to unwanted sexual attention in the workplace. By focusing on a particular social problem, this study is situated in the particular legal domain of sexual harassment laws and in a specific organizational context. Taking the perspective of the intended beneficiaries of sexual harassment policies and procedures—women with complaints about sexual conduct in the workplace—I show that the implementation of grievance procedures creates powerful obstacles to women's efforts to assert those rights. Moreover, the practices implementing the policies can alter the very definition of sexual harassment in that setting. Thus, in enacting grievance procedures, women and supervisors construct a legality in particular workplaces that offers only limited protection for women's rights.     

Unraveling the Ivory Fabric: Institutional Obstacles to the Handling of Sexual Harassment Complaints

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 make universities liable for sexual harassment that occurs within both the employment and academic contexts. This article examines how universities implement and enforce the mandates of both Title VII and Title IX through exploratory research about sexual harassment complaint procedures at a public university system on the West Coast. In-depth interviews with personnel at each campus shed light on problems with inserting a complaint resolution process into an institution that simultaneously strives to eliminate sexual harassment, while wanting to protect itself from liability. This inherent conflict of goals is reflected in the differing roles of the Title IX office and the Women's Resource Center, in creation of a user friendly policy, and in the two branches of dispute resolution.     

Workplace Sexual Harassment in Policing: Perceived Psychological Injuries by Source and Severity

Relatively little is known about employee perceptions of workplace psychological injuries following sexual and nonsexual harassment. In quasi-military occupational organizations, such as policing, the rate of sexual harassment to workplace injuries from other sources is comparatively high. In an exploratory 5?×?2 between-subjects factorial experimental projection study, 220 New South Wales Police Force officers responded to one of ten experimental vignettes in which sources of psychological injury and the gender of the injured worker were systematically varied. Results revealed an unexpected effect of experience. Employees aged 30 years and older were significantly more likely to anticipate psychological consequences and clinically diagnosable symptoms than their younger counterparts. As hypothesized, a main effect of injury source, but not gender of the target, emerged for the severity of psychological consequences: a physical injury was perceived to produce significantly more severe psychological injuries than sexual harassment in the form of coercion and unwanted sexual attention. Contrary to the hypothesis, participants rated gender-based hostility higher than other types of sexual harassment as a source of severe psychological harm. Participants believed that gender-based hostility requires more professional intervention and predicted more negative workplace consequences than other psychological injuries caused by other workplace events. As hypothesized, women employees were generally viewed as significantly more vulnerable to negative workplace outcomes than men. The police officers who participated in this study considered women as more likely to experience workplace problems following sexual coercion than other types of workplace injury. Physical injuries, gender-based hostility, and sexual coercion were distinguished from nonsexual harassment and unwanted sexual attention as significantly more likely to produce clinically diagnosable injuries, irrespective of target gender. Implications of these findings for research, practice, and legal policy are discussed.     

职场性骚扰雇主责任的法经济学分析

职场性骚扰雇主责任就是雇主要为其雇员的性骚扰行为负责任。通过法经济学的分析,对于监督管理者雇员实施的交换型性骚扰雇主承担严格责任;对于敌意环境型性骚扰雇主承担过错责任。这对预防与抑制职场性骚扰更有效率,同时,可以使社会成本降到最低。     

Dissenting and Concurring Opinions in International Investment Arbitration: How the Arbitrators Frame Their Need to Differ

Though still relatively infrequent, the issuing of dissenting and concurring opinions is becoming more common in international investment arbitration. This paper reviews the reasons for delivering separate opinions envisaged in the bibliography on investment arbitration, comparing these with practices in the related area of commercial arbitration. Fourteen recent separate opinions appended to ICSID arbitration awards and decisions are then analysed to determine how the arbitrators themselves explain why they have taken the drastic step of issuing a separate opinion. Potential areas of convergence between investment arbitration and commercial arbitration practice will be addressed.     

The devil is in the details: How arbitration system design and training facilitate and inhibit repeat-player advantages in private and state-run arbitration hearings

This article demonstrates that arbitration system design and the training that arbitrators receive shape the extent to which repeat players gain advantages in arbitration hearings. While prior arbitration research does suggest that arbitrator training matters, this is the first article to show how it matters, as we observe actual arbitration hearings in private and state-run arbitration systems in two states. Our comparative analysis links three literatures interested in how seemingly interest-neutral institutions, like disputing forums, serve in practice to reinforce dominant norms, values, and hierarchies: (1) sociolegal studies of repeat-player advantages in disputing, (2) studies of occupational socialization in educational settings, and (3) neoinstitutional organizational sociology studies of how managerial values influence the way in which organizations construct law. We bridge these literatures by showing how arbitrator system design and the occupational socialization that arbitrators receive in private arbitration are primary mechanisms through which managerial values influence the arbitration process, ultimately providing a pathway for repeat-player advantages in hearings. Because our analysis compares two distinct arbitration systems, we identify variation in these processes and offer preliminary but tangible policy recommendations for the design and implementation of arbitration systems that best protect civil and consumer rights within arbitral forums that the Supreme Court continually upholds.     

Injustice Frames, Legality, and the Everyday Construction of Sexual Harassment

This paper examines the frames that women use to understand their experience with sexual harassment. While legal frames do provide crucial guidance to women evaluating the behavior of their colleagues and supervisors, working women deployed a number of other interpretive frames when deciding whether they had been harmed by such behavior. Some of those frames emerge from feminist messages about discrimination and male abuse of power in the workplace; some emerge from management ideology that emphasizes efficiency and productivity; and some emerge from the criticism of sexual harassment policies as an unnecessary limitation on women's sexual freedom. But feeling a sense of harm does not automatically translate into the use of the label sexual harassment . Rather, women also employed an objective standard that compared their experience to some threshold of harassing behaviors. Only when the behaviors met this standard of offensiveness and were perceived as harmful did women consider their experiences sexual harassment.     

职场性骚扰与女性劳动者权益的法律保障

近年来,职场性骚扰日益成为一个严重的社会问题,不仅直接损害了女性的身心健康,而且从根本上威胁到了女性劳动者的人权.职场性骚扰是两性不平等的产物,它的存在反过来又强化了这种不平等.我国目前在处理职场性骚扰案件方面还存在诸多不足,应该以明确性骚扰概念为起点,建立完善的性骚扰处理机制,以有效应对职场性骚扰的不良影响,确实保护女性劳动者权益.     

国际海事仲裁协议及仲裁员选择

仲裁员在整个仲裁程序中举足轻重,因此,指定的仲裁员是否符合仲裁条款约定且能否履行公正行事的责任就显得至关重要,而仲裁当事方也可以仲裁员不符合仲裁条款约定或未能公正行事为由向法院申请撤换仲裁员。从英国仲裁法律与实务的角度分析仲裁条款与仲裁员选择之间的关系以及选择仲裁员时应予考虑的因素,讨论仲裁员的公正与不偏私的标准,并解释在英国法下撤换仲裁员的理由。     

Effective sexual harassment policies: unexpected lessons from Jacksonville Shipyards

Although many employers recognize the need for an effective sexual harassment policy, they have received only limited guidance from the EEOC and the courts on how to draft and implement one. This article examines a recent decision, Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, in which the court imposed a comprehensive sexual harassment policy. This article suggests that employers should consider adopting similar policies to better protect themselves from liability for sexual harassment.     

美国工作场所性骚扰雇主民事责任之研究

工作场所性骚扰在美国被认为是性别歧视行为和对妇女平等工作、就业权的侵害行为,包括交换利益性骚扰和敌意工作环境性骚扰两种形式。对于交换利益性骚扰,雇主应承担严格责任;对于敌意工作环境性骚扰,应根据性骚扰者属管理者或职员的不同身份,适用不同的归责原则,但雇主得以自己无过错而提出抗辩。美国联邦法院通过合理的证据规则、专家证人制度以及惩罚性赔偿制度的运用,更有利于对受害人的保护。     

市民社会视野下的仲裁制度(下)

一、仲裁制度:市民社会的内在诉求……2.市民社会理念在仲裁制度的运行中的具体体现。市民社会为仲裁提供了滋生的土壤,仲裁制度在运作过程中所体现的种种相异于诉讼的特征,也正是市民社会在纠纷解决上的内在诉求。(1)程序主体———意思自治原则在仲裁程序中的诉求。意思自治是市民社会的基本理念。当事人在处理实体权利,缔结合同方面有充分的意思自治,在私权利纠纷的处理方面也应有完全的意思自治。仲裁正是这样一种当事人自由选择纠纷解决方式,自主指定纠纷解决主体,自主决定纠纷解决程序和选择适用法律的争议解决制度,当事人的程序主体…     

仲裁员与仲裁当事人法律关系模型的困境及其解决

英国法传统上将仲裁员与仲裁当事人之间的法律关系视为合同关系。根据《德国仲裁法》,仲裁员合同是通过仲裁当事人与仲裁员之间的要约与承诺形成的。在排除公权力干预的前提下,对争议进行公正、有效的仲裁,也包括确保仲裁员的独立性和公正性不受仲裁员与双方仲裁当事人法律关系影响,是仲裁员、指定仲裁员的仲裁当事人以及对方当事人的共同利益诉求。仲裁员追求的经济利益,超出对方仲裁当事人所预期承担的部分的利益诉求,即便存在仲裁员与指定仲裁员的仲裁当事人之间的合意,也应当服从于对争议进行公正、有效仲裁的诉求。仅从合同法出发解释仲裁员与仲裁当事人法律关系将无法满足仲裁员和双方仲裁当事人在仲裁方面共同的关于仲裁公正、有效地进行以及取得恰当的经济利益的利益诉求。仲裁员与仲裁当事人之间的法律关系是一个复合的法律关系,包含了以提供仲裁服务为标的的合同法律关系和以作出仲裁裁决为标的的身份法律关系,前者的依据是以仲裁员为一方,以双方当事人为另一方的双方当事人合意,后者的依据是法律的相关规定。     

“Because of … Sex”: the Historical Development of Workplace Sexual Harassment Law in the USA

The current article tracks the historical development of the law of workplace sexual harassment. It begins with a discussion of the implementation of the law that serves as the basis for most sexual harassment cases in the federal courts, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The article then discusses the developments that permitted sexual harassment to come within the purview of the antidiscrimination language of Title VII. Then, the major federal legal cases that have defined the contours of sexual harassment law are discussed. Finally, the current procedures to file sexual harassment claims in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, state agencies, and federal and state court are described.     

职场性骚扰的原因分析与对策探微

职场性骚扰是具有一定危害性的社会问题,其本质是对人格尊严、人权的侵犯,它障碍了两性平等、完整享受工作待遇与发展的机会,同时也给安全与健康带来了不利影响。目前,我国反对职场性骚扰的措施还很薄弱,因此,积极探讨职场性骚扰的原因,寻找消除这一野蛮行为的对策十分必要。     

关于仲裁员行为规范的探讨

仲裁员的行为规范是仲裁员独立、公正地进行仲裁的重要指南。国际商事仲裁界对此十分重视并制定了许多相关规范,而我国的相关规范还不够健全,相关理论探讨也为数不多。本文对仲裁员行为规范的相关问题进行了初步探讨,提出了对我国相关制度落实的改进建议,最终目的是实现我国商事仲裁与国际商事仲裁的实践接轨。