1. Sexual Harrassment & Affirmative Action
October 12, 2017

2. Sexual harassment
The courts have held that employers who sexually harass their employees or permit sexual harassment in the workplace are guilty of illegal employment discrimination. Sexual harassment can be male-female, female-male, male-male, or female- female.

3. Categories of sexual harassment
Quid pro quo harassment
Hostile environment
A supervisor threatening an employee with retaliation unless the employee submits to sexual advances is quid pro quo harassment. “You either sleep with me or you are fired,” is a clear and blatant example of quid pro quo sexual harassment.
An employer may be guilty of sexual harassment if an employee is subjected to sexual conduct and comments that are pervasive and severe enough to affect the employee’s job performance. A supervisor that continues to ask a subordinate for a date despite repeated rejections may be guilty of creating a hostile work environment.

4. Who is this guy and why is he in the news?
He is Harvey Weinstein, a big Hollywood producer.
He has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment.
Has he been accused of quid pro quo harassment or hostile work environment?

5. Judge for Yourself
New Yorker Report

6. The next video contains language that some people may find offensive
The next video contains language that some people may find offensive. Feel free to leave the room for a few minutes while it is played.

7. Access Hollywood Tape from 2005

8. Does the tape depict quid pro quo harassment or hostile work environment? Actually, neither. This was a tape of the future president of the United States bragging about sexually assaulting women.
Ironically, a majority of white women (52 percent) voted for Trump.

9. Affirmative Action

10. Affirmative Action
Affirmative action refers to steps taken by colleges, universities, and employers to remedy the effects of past discrimination.

11. University Admissions
Government can apply affirmative action in hiring and college admissions only if it can demonstrate a compelling governmental interest. Promoting racial diversity in higher education has been judged to be a compelling reason.

12. The Bakke Case
In Regents of the University of California at Davis v. Bakke (1978), the Supreme Court ruled that a numerical quota for minority admissions to the university violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nonetheless, race and ethnicity could be considered as one of several factors in admissions decisions as a “plus factor” in an individualized admissions process.

13. Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
The Supreme Court reaffirmed the Bakke precedent in a 2003 case involving the University of Michigan Law School. The Court ruled that the university, which is a government agency, could consider race in its admissions program because the government has a compelling interest in promoting racial and ethnic diversity in higher education.

14. Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
Abigail Fisher from Sugar Land finished outside of the top 10 percent of her high school class and was denied admission to UT. She sued, arguing that the university’s use of race/ethnicity in its admissions process discriminates against whites and Asians.

15. Affirmative Action RIP?
Many observers believed that the Supreme Court would vote 5-4, with Justice Anthony Kennedy the swing vote, to end or at least severely restrict the use of affirmative action in university admissions.

16. However . . .
In 2016, the Court voted 4-3 to uphold the UT admission process.

17. Trump Approach
The Trump administration has directed the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice to investigate and sue colleges and universities over affirmative action programs that it believes discriminate against whites.

18. What You Have Learned What is sexual harassment?
What are the two types of sexual harassment?
What is affirmative action?
What is the significance of the Bakke case?
What is the significance of the Grutter case?
To what extent are colleges, universities, and employers legally able to use affirmative action to increase enrollment and employment of women and minorities?