Re: Bernstein hearing: The Press Release

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 9:59 PM 9/23/96, Lucky Green wrote:
>As long as the person that you are speaking to is employed in any way,
>workplace issues apply. Even if you talk to the person after work and away
>from their place of employment. The courts have ruled that the speech does
>not have to occur at the workplace to be prohibited. All that is required
>is that the person is affected at the workplace.
>
>Yes, you can be sued for sexual harrasment for trying to pick up a
>stranger in a bar, should that stranger still feel bothered by your
>advances while at work the next day.
>
>The courts have ruled,

I don't believe this is so.

Oh, I believe anybody can sue for anything, but the courts don't have to
allow the case to proceed. In this example, it wouldn't get far.

While I have objections to the overbroad (no pun intended) way many "sexual
harassment" cases have been handled, essentially all of the cases I have
heard about have involved employees and/or management within a company. For
example, women feeling put upon by "tool girl" calendars in some offices,
or women being "looked at inappropriately" by fellow employees. (Plus the
more-legitimate complaints, such as being groped in the hallways, being
told to hit the sheets or hit the streets, etc.)

I don't for a nanosecond believe your example would ever reach a court,
civil or criminal. Whom, for example, would the offended party sue? The
employer, who had absolutely no involvement, or the stranger in the bar?
While there are _stalking_ laws, if the stranger's behavior got extreme
enough, there are no laws about trying to get a date. Nor are there any
grounds for a person claiming a casual question provoked a mental trauma,
blah blah blah.

If this topic comes up again in ten years, things may've changed, of
course. I'm not hopeful about the direction things are going.

--Tim May




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