Affirmative Action and Sexual Harassment
The most important source of anti-discrimination employment law is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1972, which gave the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) the power to enforce the Act (Machan & Chester, 2002; Meiners, Ringleb, & Edwards, 1994). Title VII and its amendments prohibit all forms of employment discrimination against employees, applicants, and union members on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and gender at any stage of employment. Title VII applies to employees with 15 or more employees, labor unions with 15 or more members, labor unions that operate hiring halls, employment agencies, and state and local governing units or agencies (Miller & Jentz, 2000).
Title VII prohibits both intentional and unintentional discrimination. The former type of discrimination is known as disparate-treatment discrimination. This establishes certain protected classes of individuals consisting of minorities, women, and others. Additionally, disparate-impact discrimination is said to occur when an employer's workforce does not reflect the percentage of non-whites, women, or members of other protected classes that characterizes qualified individuals in the labor market. To augment Title VII, the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967 (29 USC Sections 621-634) and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 USC Sections 12102-12118) also establish mandates against discrimination based on age or disability (Miller & Jentz, 2000).
Finally, under Executive Order 11246, Affirmative Action directly impacts upon all businesses receiving federal contracts (Hall, 1992). Affirmative action policies have had a profound and controversial impact upon business and industry resulting in many challenges to this policy; included are challenges to business accused of sexual harassment of workers, usu...