x…that if I didn’t get off the rig, that I would be sexually violated” (Oncale Amicus Brief).Oncale continued to try to work but says he, “…couldn’t sleep because I was afraid that they would do something to me, I couldn’t fight, and I felt disgraced.” Oncale quit soon thereafter, stating on his pink slip that he “voluntarily left due to sexual harassment and verbal abuse.” On December 5, 1991, he filed a sexual discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. His suit complained of both a hostile environment and quid pro quo sexual harassment. When Oncale’s case reached the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court, he was denied judgment. Oncale’s attorneys appealed and the case eventually appeared before the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court Justices said men who sexually harass other men (and women who harass women) are discriminating and thus breaking the law. They based their findings on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. According to the E.E.O.C., the act states that, “Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.”Sundowner based their defense on three separate arguments. The first claimed that in order for an act to be considered “sexual harassment” there must be a man and a woman involved. According to Sundowner, same sex harassment doesn’t exist. To this the Supreme Court replied, “When women and men are sexually violated, verbally or physically, they are targeted and harmed as women and as men…and citizens have a right to ...
