Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc,soc.women,soc.men,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.discrimination From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) Subject: "Illinois Affiliate Challenges National ACLU Sexual Harassment Policy" Message-ID: Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 00:07:40 GMT Lines: 41 [Reprinted from The Illinois Brief, a publication of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. (Reprints of unsigned articles such as this one are allowed if acknowledged like so.)] From Volume 50, Number 3, Fall 1993 Illinois Affiliate Challenges National ACLU Sexual Harassment Policy The Board of Directors of the Illinois affiliate disagreed with the national ACLU's new policy on sexual harassment, and at the July 17 meeting passed an alternate policy more protective of workers' First Amendment rights. The Illinois policy changes only one paragraph of the national ACLU's policy, that section which describes the circumstances in which expressive conduct can be prohibited by the government as unlawful sexual harassment. The Illinois description of those circumstances reads as follows: "Where conduct of expression on the basis of sex is directed on the basis of sex is directed at an individual employee or class of employees and is sufficiently pervasive or intense that its effect on a reasonable person in those particular circumstances would be to hinder significantly a person from functioning as an employee and it significantly, adversely affects the mental, emotional or physical well-being of an employee. Conduct or expression that meets this definition is actionable because of the unique characteristics of the workplace, including the existence of authority relationships, the economic necessity to remain and the limited opportunity to respond -- even though it might not be actionable in other settings. Such behavior need not amount to constructive discharge, and is not immunized because expression is involved." The major difference between the two clauses of the policy is that National's policy does not require the offensive speech to be directed at an individual in particular, and the Illinois amendment does make such a stipulation. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =