Sexual Harassment: A Primer

1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 is enacted. It contains a provocatively novel amendment banning job discrimination on the basis of sex, which foes of the law had hoped would derail it.

1975 In the first reported sexual-harassment decision under the new law, involving two women who claimed they suffered repeated verbal and physical advances from a supervisor, Arizona federal district court rules the act does not cover such a claim.

1977 Washington, federal appeals court rules that sexual harassment is discrimination under the act, in a case in which a woman alleged her job was abolished in retaliation for refusing a supervisor's sexual advances.

1980 The EEOC issues landmark sexual-harassment guidelines prohibiting unwelcome sexual advances or requests that are made a condition of employment, and conduct that creates a hostile work environment.

1986 U.S. Supreme Court upholds validity of the EEOC guidelines and rules that sexual harassment that creates a hostile or abusive work environment is a violation of the act.

1991 A Florida federal district court rules that nude pinups in the workplace can create an atmosphere that constitutes sexual harassment; a California federal appeals court rules that a hostile environment should be evaluated from the standpoint not of a "reasonable person" but of a "reasonable woman."

1993 U.S. Supreme Court rules that a hostile work environment need not be psychologically injurious but only reasonably perceived as abusive.