Prologue to the EEOC Guidelines on Sexual Harassment
![handle is hein.journals/capulr10 and id is 491 raw text is: PROLOGUE TO THE EEOC GUIDELINES ON
SEXUAL HARASSMENT'
J. CLAY SMITH, JR.*
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a five-
member bipartisan Commission having principal responsibility for the
administration and enforcement of Federal laws prohibiting discrimina-
tion in employment, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
as amended. Since the early days of its existence as an agency, the
Commission has recognized that harassment in the workplace, which is
based on race, religion, national origin, color, or sex, constitutes a
violation of Title VII because it imposes an adverse term or condition
of employment on one class of people which is not imposed on any
other classes of people. It unfairly handicaps and disadvantages those
people against whom it is directed, often making it impossible for them
to perform their jobs. The Commission continues to actively oppose
harassment in the workplace on any Title VII basis, including harass-
ment on the basis of sex which takes the form of sexual harassment.
That sexual harassment is widespread is not to be denied. Accor-
ding to Lin Farley, the author of Sexual Shakedown, [in May 1975 the
Women's Affairs Section of the Human Affairs Program at Cornell
University distributed the first questionnaire ever devoted solely to
the topic of sexual harassment. ... Seventy percent [of the respondents
had] personally experienced some form of harassment.2 In 1976, Red-
book magazine published a questionnaire on sexual harassment to
which over 9,000 women responded. Of this number, one in ten
reported that they had experienced unwanted sexual attentions on the
job.3 Additionally, a statistically significant study conducted by the
U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board shows that during the two years
prior to the survey, which was done in early 1980, forty-two percent of
all federally employed women surveyed reported that they were vic-
tims of sexual harassment.' Also during the late 1970's cases involving
sexual harassment were decided in six Federal Circuit Courts and
seven additional cases were decided in Federal District Courts.
* Acting Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
1. Based on Chairman Smith's testimony to the Senate Committee on Labor and
Human Resources, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, April 21, 1981.
2. L. FARLEY, SEXUAL SHAKEDOWN: THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN ON THE
JOB 39-40 (1st ed. 1978).
3. Id. at 40.
4. Sexual Harassment in the Federal Government (Part II): Hearings before the
Subcomm. on Investigations of the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 96th
Cong., 2nd Sess. 5 (1980) (Statement of Ruth T. Prokop). -](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/capulr10&div=36&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Prologue to the EEOC Guidelines on Sexual Harassment
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