Sexual Harassment

SEXUAL HARASSMENT is unwanted sexual behavior that interferes with occupational or educational functioning and is a form of white-collar crime. However, there is no statutory law criminalizing sexual harassment, but court cases against harassers in civil court have been won based upon Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting sex discrimination.

The term sexual harassment was coined in 1970 when Carmita Wood, an administrative assistant at Cornell University sued the university for unemployment compensation after she left the university due to an illness, precipitated as the result of ongoing sexual advances from a university professor. In 1972, Congress passed the Equal Opportunity Employment Act extending the coverage of Title VII to state and local governments and empowering the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce, ...