al orientation are not illegal under Title VII (Williamson v. Edwards, 1989, p. 70; DeSantis v. Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co., 1979, p. 331).
Federal court interpretations of Title VII consistently have determined that the sole purpose of the sex discrimination provision is to remedy the economic deprivation of women as a class. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has thus far agreed with the federal courts. According to the EEOC, the definition of "sex" for the purposes of Title VII is "a person's gender, an immutable characteristic with which the person is born." "Homosexuality," on the other hand, is a "condition . . . related to a person's sexual proclivities or practices, not to his or her gender" (Capers, 1991, pp. 1169-1170).
The reasoning of the federal courts and EEOC have led to numerous instances of unequal treatment before the law, especially in terms of sexual harassment charges in the workplace. For example, in the 1990 Carreno case, a federal district court dismissed a sex discrimination claim base
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