Sexual Harassment

One of the most significant cases of sexual harassment to be publicized in the media and ruled upon by the Supreme Court is the case of Joseph Oncale versus Sundowner Offshore Services, a Houston oil firm that drills for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Joseph Oncale was one of the members of a seven man crew that worked together and shared living quarters on an offshore drilling rig. In 1991, Oncale, who had only recently been hired as a roustabout, the lowest form of oil rig laborer, found himself the victim of unwelcome and ugly sexual advances by two males, one a crane operator and the other his supervisor. Oncale charges that Danny Pippen and John Lyons grabbed him and held him against his will on the boat, while Lyons put his exposed genitals against Oncale's forehead and threatened to rape him. During another incident, while Oncale was showering the two men accosted him and again held him against his will. This time Lyons shoved a bar of soap between Oncale's buttocks as the men again threatened to rape him. Oncale complained twice to company officials, but nothing happened as a result of the complaints and after being accosted one more time, Oncale quit his job. Oncale sued the company for sexual harassment in the workplace. Two lower courts threw out Oncale's case, claiming that sexual harassment federal law does not encompass same-sex harassment. However, upon appeal to the Supreme Court, the High Court rules that sexual harassm

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tions of what it is to be a male by other men. In other words, they are perceived as not being macho enough. Therefore, while the harassment may not be sexually motivated gender is the discriminatory factor because men are being harassed by men who feel that in some way they are not male enough. As the Supreme Court ruled "Harassment need not be motivated out of any sexual desire to be illegal, for example, a female who harasses another female solely out of a general hostility toward having other women around" (Cloud 1). The Oncale case against his employers was reinstated by the Supreme Court decision, but Oncale will still have to prove his case to a jury in court. This may be difficult to do because he will have to prove that the harassment was based on his gender, something that is not easy to do because all of the individuals on the rig were male. In other words, did the harassment occur because of Oncale's sex, or because of the fact that the two men harassing him don't like men or this particular man, or maybe because they liked this man. Clearly, the right thing to do by Sundowner is to award Oncale monetary damages, reinstate him in a comparable position, and to take action against the two alleged perpetrators of t

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