There's been a great deal of debate about sexual harassment. Sexual harassment, along with other forms of employment discrimination has been one of the fastest growing legal issues over the past decade. Sexual Harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII was implemented by a federal agency known as the EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Initially, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on race, religion, color, national origin, and sex. But between 1964 and the mid-1970s, "women began to turn to the courts, charging that sexual harassment was a form of sex discrimination prohibited under the law(Kohl, John)."" In response to these legal challenges the EEOC developed and issued "Guidelines on Sexual Harassment- (29 Code Federal Regulations) on November 10, 1980. In legal terms, these guidelines defined sexual harassment as: "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for!.
sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when (1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment, (2) submission to or rejection of this conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment(Kohl)."" In real life, sexual harassment is defined as a harassing behavior ranging from repeated offensive or belittling jokes to a workplace full of offensive pornography to an outright sexual assault. According to Marianne M. Jennings, "In 1991, there were 1,221 sexual harassment cases filed. In 1997, the number grew to 15,889. Among these 15,889 cases filed, 88.4% were filed by women and only 4.