Georgetown Law Journal
November, 1999
88 Geo. L.J. 1
Dignity and Discrimination: Toward a Pluralistic Understanding of Workplace Harassment
Rosa Ehrenreich
INTRODUCTION
Twenty years after the publication of Catharine MacKinnon's pathbreaking book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination, n1 the concept of "sexual harassment" remains deeply controversial. The number of workplace sexual harassment claims filed annually with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has risen by more than fifty percent since the beginning of the 1990s. n2 But while many Americans have come to accept the principle that men should not make crude or threatening sexual advances to female subordinates at work, even this basic principle is fraught with uncertainty.
Since the publication of MacKinnon's book in 1979, hundreds of law journal articles have addressed the issue of workplace sexual harassment. Recent scholarly discussion of harassment, however, has focused almost exclusively on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, n3 which prohibits workplace discrimination based on sex. n4 This near-exclusive focus on Title VII as a means of understanding and redressing workplace harassment is deeply misguided, as scholars have turned doctrinal somersaults in order to claim that virtually every form of sexual harassment, including same-sex sexual harassment, is discrimination on the basis of sex. Such attempts to shoehorn all forms of sexual harassment into Title VII have failed to diminish noticeably the public confusion about sexual harassment and have led to a distorted definition of sex discrimination.
The excessive reliance on Title VII has also led scholars to overlook the fact that workplace harassment, sexual or nonsexual, is fundamentally a dignitary harm: an affront to the victim's dignity and personality interests. As a result, despite the explosion of scholarship on sexual harassment, a coherent and robust account of what is wrong with all forms of workplace harassment, both sexual and nonsexual, is lacking.
Scholarly discussion of sexual harassment tends to conflate two very different things: the nature of the harm of harassment, which is a dignitary harm, and the context in which the harm of harassment occurs, which is a context of discrimination. The excessive focus on the discriminatory context in which the workplace harassment of women occurs, which results from the heavy emphasis on Title VII, has tended to foster an essentialist conception of sexual harassment as a special "women's injury"; this conception, in turn, has fueled an antifeminist backlash against the very notion of sexual harassment. n5 It is important to realize that workplace harassment, sexualized or nonsexualized, injures the dignitary interests of individual harassment victims, regardless of their sex and regardless of the sex of their harassers. The workplace harassment of women is wrong not because women are women, but because women are human beings.
Now is the time for a fundamental change in how harassment in the workplace is considered. This article argues for a comprehensive re-examination of how workplace harassment is conceptualized. Title VII should maintain an important place, because discrimination against women remains a grave societal problem. However, a focus on Title VII -- with its emphasis on sex discrimination -- must be balanced by an equal focus on the dignitary harm aspects of harassment. Only a dignitary harm focus permits the development of a robust legal theory that allows simultaneous recognition of the ongoing problem of workplace discrimination against women and, at the same time, permits the development of broad, tort-based remedies for the many kinds of nondiscriminatory and non-sexual dignitary harms that injure both men and women in the workplace.
Part I of this article briefly examines some of the drawbacks and inconsistencies of Title VII sexual harassment jurisprudence and shows that Title VII does not provide an adequate framework for understanding many common forms of workplace harassment. Title VII is unquestionably a critical means of fighting against workplace discrimination; however, by emphasizing discrimination at the expense of dignity, the Title VII workplace harassment paradigm provides an incomplete understanding of the wrongs of workplace harassment.
Part II of this article asserts the importance of an approach to sexual harassment that distinguishes between the nature of the harm of workplace sexual harassment (a dignitary harm) and the context in which the harm occurs (a context of discrimination against women). A pluralistic understanding of workplace harassment permits the provision of legal remedies for workers of any sex or sexual orientation who suffer from abusive treatment (whether sexual or nonsexual in nature), while still recognizing that workplace harassment occurs in patterned ways and has historically operated to exclude women, in particular, from equal access to social, political, and economic power. While Title VII highlights the discriminatory -- and often sexist -- motives and patterns in many cases of workplace harassment, harassment is not a matter of concern only when "sexual." Further, the claim that workplace harassment is a "group harm" that only affects women is too simplistic. First, as Vicki Schultz has eloquently argued, not all discriminatory workplace harassment of women is "sexual" in nature. n6 Second, men as well as women can be subjected to harassment and abusive treatment at work. A pluralistic understanding of workplace harassment must reflect these insights.
Part III of this article contends that common-law tort causes of action provide a promising way to address the dignitary harm element of "classic" cases of sexual harassment, those involving male harassers and female victims. Twenty years ago, feminist scholars such as MacKinnon considered -- and rejected -- this approach. n7 Dismissing a tort approach in this manner, while understandable in 1979, now does a disservice to women and other harassment victims. Moving beyond "classic" cases of sexual harassment, Part III of this article also argues that common-law tort causes of action contain the germ of a more general right to be free of severe dignitary harm in the workplace and that the changing social meaning of work should be deemed to create special duties for employers in protecting all workers from workplace harassment, sexual and nonsexual.
Part IV defends this approach against several possible objections. These objections include the "group harm" objection, "the rigid courts" objection, the "liability and preemption" objection, and the "civility code" objection.
Finally, Part V demonstrates why a pluralistic understanding of workplace harassment would benefit all workers while strengthening feminist efforts to protect women from workplace discrimination. A pluralistic approach to workplace harassment -- one that combines the use of Title VII, where appropriate, with tort causes of action -- has three important benefits. First, such a pluralistic approach allows for legal remedies for the many workers who experience severe harassment on the job, but who would be hard-pressed to assert that their harassment was "because of sex," as required by even the most expansive reading of Title VII. Second, a pluralistic approach keeps the primary focus of Title VII where it should be: on addressing the problem of widespread workplace discrimination against members of less powerful groups, such as racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, and, of course, women. Third, grounding understanding of the sexual harassment of women in a notion of dignitary harm as well as in a discrimination paradigm makes a critical political and philosophical point: The workplace harassment of women is wrong not because women are women, but because women are human beings and share with all other human beings the right to be treated in the workplace with respect and concern.
I. CONFUSION AND CONTROVERSY
A. POPULAR CONFUSION
The hundreds of articles on sexual harassment published in American newspapers and magazines each year testify to the ongoing cultural confusion about sexual harassment: n8 Just what is it? n9 If wrong, why is it wrong? What can you say at work without getting into trouble? Can you tell a dirty joke? Put up a picture of your girlfriend (or boyfriend) naked or in a skimpy bathing suit? Ask your secretary out on a date? Ask your coworker out on a date? Ask your boss out on a date? Comment on your secretary's clothes? Should a construction-site sign that reads "Men Working" be deemed to violate federal antidiscrimination law? n10 Has, as one commentator charges, "bad taste . . . become a federal offense"? n11 Did Clarence Thomas sexually harass Anita Hill? Did Bill Clinton harass Paula Jones? Did he harass Monica Lewinsky? Can a woman sexually harass a man? Can a woman sexually harass a woman, n12 or a man sexually harass a man? n13
Sexual harassment often partakes, at least to some degree, of "I-know-it-when-I-see-it-ness." n14 The average person can likely distinguish between a tentative, but unwanted, sexual overture or a clumsy compliment on the one hand and a hostile and demeaning series of sexual threats and mockeries on the other. Nonetheless, to the extent that talk of sexual harassment tends inevitably to generate some hostile comments and questions, some of the ridicule and hostility may arise out of a deeply felt sense that sexual harassment doctrine is filled with vagueness and contradictions. n15
B. SCHOLARLY UNHAPPINESS WITH TITLE VII JURISPRUDENCE: WHY IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT SEX DISCRIMINATION?
When lawyers, judges, and scholars speak of sexual harassment, Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in hiring, firing, and compensation, or in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, n16 is generally presumed to be the applicable legal provision. Several major feminist articles about sexual harassment, most of which are explicitly motivated by a desire to restore some of Title VII's doctrinal integrity, have evolved during the past year or two. Take, for instance, the recent work of Kathryn Abrams, Katherine Franke, and Vicki Schultz. n17 Although these writers differ substantially in their understanding of the proper role of Title VII in regulating workplace behavior, they all accept a basic premise: that Title VII sexual harassment jurisprudence is rife with contradictions and apparent paradoxes and must be significantly reconceptualized. Thus, Franke asks:
What exactly is wrong with sexual harassment? Why is it sex discrimination? . . . While our intuitions may lead us to conclude that when a man directs offensive sexual conduct at a female colleague, sexual discrimination is afoot, the Supreme Court has not offered a theory as to why this is the case . . . . [Major feminist theories] of the wrong of sexual harassment don't do the work they purport to. When pressed, they provide indeterminate and unprincipled outcomes . . . . n18
Abrams echoes this lament, observing that after "almost two decades of litigation," sexual harassment doctrine is filled with "inconsistencies, exclusions and misunderstandings." n19 Schultz further critiques Title VII jurisprudence, arguing that the dominant "desire-based" paradigm for understanding sex discrimination under Title VII "has compromised the law's protection. Principal among its drawbacks, the paradigm is underinclusive, omitting -- and even obscuring -- many of the most prevalent forms of harassment that make workplaces hostile and alienating to workers based on their gender." n20
Abrams, Franke, and Schultz are all inheritors of the same feminist legal tradition, and a concern about the same apparent problems in Title VII jurisprudence permeates their recent work. n21 First and foremost, they each note that the reasons why sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination are not intuitively obvious: Is it because a man who propositions a female employee would presumably not have propositioned a male employee, and thus, the propositioned woman has been treated differently than her male colleagues because of her sex? Is it because sexual harassment is motivated by hostility to the presence of women in the workplace? Is it because, in a context of patriarchy and sexual violence against women, the mere presence of sexuality in the workplace, however motivated, is inherently threatening to women, and prevents them from enjoying their work and succeeding on the same basis as men? n22 As many commentators have noted, none of these three common explanations is trouble-free, n23 therefore making instructive a brief discussion of the most commonly cited problems.
1. The Formal Equality Argument
The first explanation -- the notion that sexual harassment of women by men is sex discrimination because it violates formal equality principles -- faces the problem of "the equal opportunity harasser": the person who harasses both men and women. If a male employer is bisexual, for instance, and propositions both his female employees and his male employees, one may logically say that no one has been treated differently on the basis of sex, and therefore, no discrimination has occurred within the meaning of Title VII. n24 This conclusion is troubling, however, for regardless of what Title VII has to say about this issue, a crude and threatening sexual proposition should not cease to be legally actionable because both men and women have to put up with it.
Considering same-sex sexual harassment, a similar problem emerges with the formal equality justification for treating sexual harassment as sex discrimination: if the male harasser is gay, for instance, and harasses another man, it makes sense, in a wholly formal way, to say that the victim would not have been harassed had he not been male (though to many feminists, permitting such male victims of homosexual harassment to recover under Title VII obscures the basic point that women, not men, have historically suffered from sex discrimination). n25 This premise is complicated if a straight man harasses another man -- perhaps a gay or "effeminate" coworker -- by taunting him, threatening to rape him, or insulting him using sexualized language. n26 The courts have made clear that Title VII does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. n27 If a man singles out another man for abuse, sexualized or not, the victim in most cases appears to have little likelihood of prevailing under Title VII. n28
2. The Subordination Argument
The second commonly offered explanation -- that sexual harassment is discriminatory because it is motivated by hostility toward women in the workplace -- assumes too much, for some sexual harassment may in fact be motivated by sexual desire, by a personal dislike of the victim, or by some other motive, which, however regrettable, is not the same as a general hostility to the presence of women in the workplace. Further, the notion that sexual harassment is wrong because motivated by a desire to prevent women from working in traditionally male settings also poses problems in addressing situations of same-sex harassment. If a male employer fires his male subordinate for refusing to respond to his sexual advances, it makes little sense to say that his action discriminates against women -- at least if one uses the term "discriminate" in the colloquial sense of the word -- or, indeed, against men. n29 Concluding that the firing discriminates against men is similarly ludicrous because the action appears unlikely to be motivated by a generalized hostility to men in the workplace. n30
3. The "All Sex Subordinates Women" Argument
The third common justification for treating sexual harassment as sex discrimination -- that in a violent and patriarchal society, any sexual words or behavior in the workplace act to intimidate women -- is greatly overinclusive, demeaning to women as agents, and likely to lead to the chilling of innocuous and healthy forms of sexual expression. n31 As Schultz notes, "Just as gender-based oppression occurs outside the realm of the sexual, so too does the sphere of sexuality encompass more than simply oppression. Sexual relations -- heterosexual or otherwise -- do not inherently enact male dominance over women." n32 To the extent that all sexual words and behavior are viewed as oppressive in the workplace, employers may fear that permitting such sexual expression will render them vulnerable to sexual harassment suits. This "invites companies to discipline or discharge workers for the wrong reasons," observes Schultz. n33 She asserts, "In my view, it is misguided to attempt to banish all hints of sexuality from the workplace. For one thing, it will not work . . . . Sexuality permeates organizations and, so long as organizations are made up of human beings, will continue to flourish in one form or another." n34
C. FEMINIST EFFORTS TO RESOLVE THE CONTRADICTIONS
Responding to these tensions in common accounts of Title VII doctrine, recent feminist scholarship has sought to clarify the ways in which sexual harassment might be viewed as constituting sex discrimination. Franke, Abrams, and Schultz, for instance, each provide accounts of Title VII that place sexism and gender stereotyping at the center of the problem of sexual harassment. n35
To Franke, sexual harassment is part of a "technology of sexism": it reaffirms oppressive and discriminating gender stereotypes that harm both women and men and, in so doing, constitutes a form of sex discrimination. n36 In Franke's view, Title VII should permit same-sex harassment actions brought by men or women who were harassed for failure to conform to sexist gender stereotypes and should also permit more traditional actions from women who have been harassed by men. n37 Abrams shares Franke's basic conception that sexual harassment is about subordination, but insists that the central focus of Title VII should remain on remedying the workplace oppression of women because women, not men, are disproportionately harmed by sexual harassment. n38 Schultz agrees with Franke, arguing that the purpose of Title VII is to dismantle workplace segregation by integrating women into jobs traditionally dominated by men. n39
Recent feminist scholarship on Title VII has also been animated significantly by a desire to "fit everything in" beneath the Title VII umbrella, making room for as many kinds of objectionable workplace sexual behavior as possible. In particular, scholars have been anxious to find ways to view the sexual harassment of men and same-sex sexual harassment as sex discrimination under Title VII. This temptation is natural; after all, if a male employer should be barred from linking a female employee's job benefits to her compliance with his sexual demands, then a female employer similarly should be barred from making quid pro quo sexual demands of a male employee, and any employer should be barred from making sexual demands of someone of the same sex. Similarly, if a man may not create a hostile sexual environment for female employees -- by subjecting them to crude sexual jokes, commenting ceaselessly upon their bodies, or using demeaning sexual epithets to speak to them -- a woman, too, should be prohibited from doing the same to a man in her workplace, as should someone who acts this way toward a member of the same sex.
Several feminist scholars, however, have viewed these dilemmas as serious challenges to Title VII doctrine. Franke, speaking of quid pro quo same sex harassment cases and cases in which gay men create a hostile environment for straight men, notes, "These cases raise that uncomfortable, yet inevitable, intellectual moment when grand theory fails to provide a unifying and totalizing approach to a problem . . . [and these cases] present the most difficult challenge to . . . any theory of sex discrimination." n40 On the one hand, excluding male-on-male harassment from the ambit of Title VII creates an apparent asymmetry and the impression of arbitrariness. On the other hand, treating this kind of harassment as functionally equivalent to male harassment of women seems, in some deep way, to do violence to the historical reality in which Title VII is rooted: n41 the reality is that most workplace sexual harassment is perpetrated by men against women not by coincidence, but as part of a centuries-old pattern of the subjection and exclusion of women from positions of economic and political power. n42
Franke would allow Title VII claims from men (and, presumably, women) who face quid pro quo harassment from homosexual members of their own sex, though she suggests that these cases be brought under the disparate treatment prong of Title VII. She also favors allowing claims from men who have been subjected to sexualized "rough-housing," but only if they protest about the workplace and then face retaliatory harassment. n43 Abrams, too, would permit Title VII claims from men targeted by other men for workplace harassment for failure to conform to appropriately masculine sexual stereotypes and would likewise permit claims from men who have not been specifically singled out for harassment, but who can nonetheless make plausible claims that "sexualized talk or practices," as a form of "roughhousing or horsing around," have unreasonably interfered with their work performance. n44 Like Franke and Abrams, Schultz would allow same-sex harassment claims where the harassment is linked to gender stereotyping and the maintenance of a gender-stratified workplace. n45
Franke acknowledges her doubts about trying to fold too much into Title VII: "Title VII cannot and should not be the vehicle by which we dismantle every hypermasculine or hyperfeminine microculture." n46 Franke suggests that "workplace sexual misconduct that does not play a role in the regulation and enforcement of hetero-patriarchal gender norms, while not actionable under sex discrimination laws, should still be actionable under appropriate state tort, contract, or even racketeering laws." n47 However, while she notes that "it may make sense for states to enact statutes providing remedies for workplace sexual misconduct," she leaves the problem "for another day." n48 Abrams, too, shares the concern about trying to fit too much into Title VII. Ultimately, Abrams notes ruefully:
One size cannot fit all, theoretically speaking: it is crucial to see women's inequality as the product of many intersecting motives, constructions, and modes of treatment. Because sexual harassment has captured public attention to perhaps a greater degree than any other gender-based injury, an understanding of sexual harassment that is explicitly, paradigmatically plural will be a tremendous resource in this effort. n49
II. TOWARD A PLURALISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
A. TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE
Title VII, then, has proved to be a Procrustean bed: n50 the only way to jam all forms of workplace harassment into its framework involves doing violence to the basic concept of workplace discrimination. This article seeks to avoid the perils of a "one-size-fits-all" theory by taking up the challenge posed by scholars such as Franke, Abrams, and Schultz, and indeed, by going a step further in proposing a pluralistic understanding of workplace harassment. A pluralistic understanding emphasizes the patterned ways in which workplace harassment differentially affects members of discrete and vulnerable groups, particularly emphasizing the ways in which workplace harassment contributes to the systematic exclusion of women from positions of economic and political power. Further, this pluralistic understanding also accounts adequately for the negative nature of all workplace harassment, regardless of the gender n51 or sexual orientation of the harasser and the harassed and regardless of whether the harassing behavior is sexual in nature.
The argument for a pluralistic understanding of harassment begins with two basic premises. First, it assumes that every person has a right to be free from abusive treatment in the workplace. The term "every person" is used advisedly: a person's race, sex, religion, or national origin (or, for that matter, sexual orientation, disability, height, weight, physical attractiveness, accent, eye color, or other distinguishing characteristic) does not affect his or her basic humanity, and no human being should be treated abusively at work. Moreover, "abusive treatment" is used in its broad sense: treatment that -- whether through intent or through reckless or negligent disregard of the consequences -- tends to humiliate, torment, threaten, intimidate, pressure, demean, frighten, or injure the person toward whom it is directed. n52
The second premise is that societal discrimination against members of certain historically less powerful groups is a real and serious social phenomenon that calls out urgently for legal and policy intervention. Women have historically faced discrimination in the workplace, this discrimination continues today, and the workplace harassment of women is often motivated by hostility to their presence in the workplace. n53 Even when harassment of women at work is not directly motivated by discriminatory impulses, it may still have a disproportionately adverse impact on the workplace advancement of women. n54
B. DIGNITARY HARMS IN A CONTEXT OF DISCRIMINATION
In order to achieve such a pluralistic understanding of workplace harassment -- one that permits us both to see why all workplace harassment is wrong regardless of the gender of the harasser or the harassed, but that still allows us to emphasize the patterned and discriminatory ways in which workplace harassment occurs -- we must first avoid falling into the category confusion so common in sexual harassment doctrine. To avoid this confusion, the nature of the harm of sexual harassment, on the one hand, must be distinguished from the context in which the harm occurs, on the other.
The most fundamental harm of sexual harassment is a dignitary harm: by humiliating, intimidating, tormenting, pressuring, or mocking individuals in their places of work, sexual harassment is an insult to the dignity, autonomy, and personhood of each victim; such harassment violates each individual's right to be treated with the respect and concern that is due to her as a full and equally valuable human being. n55 The harm of sexual harassment, then, is a dignitary harm, closely akin to other, nonsexual, dignitary harms. But is this the end of the story? No -- for dignitary harms do not occur in a vacuum: the context in which those dignitary harms take place is also critical to an ultimate understanding of the harm. The Twentieth Century has seen an unprecedented flow of women both into the workforce and, in particular, into jobs previously dominated by men. n56 Men have resisted, often aggressively and sometimes violently, this massive influx of women into "men's jobs." n57 To a significant extent, when a woman is harassed at work, her harassment needs to be seen as part of a discriminatory backlash: a last-ditch effort by men to preserve the playgrounds of male power from female competitors. n58 Not all workplace harassment of women is motivated by a desire -- explicit or implicit -- to keep women out of male-dominated jobs. However, failure to recognize that much -- perhaps most -- workplace harassment of women is motivated by discriminatory male attitudes would be to miss the forest for the trees. The harm of workplace sexual harassment is a dignitary harm, but the context in which the harm occurs is a context of discrimination against women in the workplace.
Two analogies may help to clarify this distinction. Consider, first, violent sexual assault: rape, attempted rape, and so on. The nature of the harm is clear: such assaults are violent attacks upon the person -- crimes of violence that may cause both physical and psychological harm. In American society, the vast majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men against women, n59 and ample evidence links the prevalence of violent sexual assaults against women to more generalized cultural denigration and objectification of women. n60 Here the harm of sexual violence occurs within a particular context of long-standing discrimination against women.
From a policy perspective, this context is of tremendous significance. When crafting programs designed to raise the status of women or prevent sexual violence, speaking of the harm of sexual assault without reference to its broader context -- recognizing that most perpetrators are men and most victims women -- would be absurd.
Nonetheless, the context of the harm is not identical to the nature of the harm. Although widespread societal denigration and objectification of women may lead to a high number of violent sexual attacks on women, n61 violent sexual assault is wrong because it is a violent and invasive attack upon a human being, not because such assaults usually happen to women and usually are inflicted by men. n62 Indeed, men, too, are sexually assaulted, but to say either that when men are raped it is because of societal denigration of women n63 or that a man who is raped suffers less than a woman who is raped hardly makes sense. n64 A man's suffering may, indeed, be "different" from a woman's in that his understanding of what has happened to him will be filtered through his perceptions of the social meaning of rape and masculinity. Thus, although the same context may affect his suffering in different ways, there is no basis for claiming that he suffers less than a woman, so any "theory" that purports to explain the harms of sexual violence needs to take into account the fact that men as well as women can be victims. Violent sexual assault is wrong, then, because no human being, regardless of gender, should be violently attacked or compelled to have sexual relations against his or her wishes.
As another example, consider the Second World War, during which an estimated six million Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Since the Holocaust, the world has struggled to come to terms with the murder of so many millions and to characterize the colossal wrongness of the death camps. Some have emphasized that the Holocaust was primarily "about" anti-Semitism because it involved a deliberate policy of murdering all Jews who could be found. n65 Characterizing the Holocaust as "about" anti-Semitism captures a deep, and important, truth: the Holocaust cannot be understood without also understanding the history of the Jews in Europe, the rise of European anti-Semitism, and the deliberate exploitation and fomenting of anti-Semitic sentiment by Adolph Hitler. An understanding of the Holocaust relies on an understanding of anti-Semitism, and an understanding of Europe's shameful history of anti-Semitism (replete with near-constant discrimination and episodic pogroms) likewise is necessary to prevent future discrimination or atrocities against people of Jewish origin. n66
Characterizing the Holocaust as primarily "about" anti-Semitism captures one deep truth, but it misses another. The Holocaust involved the systematic brutalization and slaughter of millions of human beings -- mostly Jews, but also Poles, communists, homosexuals, dissidents, persons with mental and physical disabilities, and assorted other "undesirables." The Nazis cast a wide net; they murdered Jews because they were Jews, but they also murdered many other people, some because they were members of an "undesirable" group, others for almost any reason, or for no reason at all. n67
Because the Nazis systematically ignored the value of human life and dignity, the death camps may be characterized as representing a "crime against humanity." This phrase emphasizes two things. First, the phrase emphasizes the fact that the millions murdered were not all Jews, even though most of them were. Second, and most important, it emphasizes that the death camps were wrong not because brutalizing and killing Jews is wrong, but because Jews, along with communists, Poles, homosexuals, and other persecuted individuals, are all human beings and because the systematic devaluing and murder of human beings is a deep wrong.
An analytic distinction can therefore be drawn between the nature of the harm of the death camps and the context in which that harm occurred. The nature of the harm, of course, has to do both with violence and with the denial of human dignity. The context in which the harms occurred was a context of virulent anti-Semitism. Consideration of both the nature of the harms and their context is necessary to an understanding of the Holocaust and necessary to prevent future events like it. Both are important, and each gets at important truths; however, considered in isolation, neither tells the whole story. n68
C. "INDIVIDUAL" VERSUS "GROUP" HARMS
The often facile distinction between "individual harms" and "group harms" must be problematized and broken down. n69 This distinction is, by now, a hoary one and, for many early feminists, a valuable one. But at times -- particularly in the context of workplace harassment -- the distinction can nevertheless obfuscate as much as it enlightens.
If a woman is harassed at work, it may be that she was targeted for sexual harassment because her harasser bore a general animosity toward women in the workplace and that her harassment was not, in this sense, "personal"; that is, she was targeted because of the characteristics she shares with all other women, not because of characteristics that are entirely individual and unique to her. Nonetheless, she suffers as an individual and feels degraded or frightened or outraged as an individual. The quality of her suffering is not altered, in some easily predictable way, by the fact that she is a woman and that she was targeted for harassment because of her gender.
If the victim understands that she was targeted for discriminatory reasons, her individual suffering may worsen, for she may feel doubly undermined and attacked, both as an individual and as a woman. Her suffering may be compounded if she feels trapped -- condemned always to be targeted for an attribute she cannot change. On the other hand, her awareness of having been targeted for discriminatory reasons may, instead, diminish her individual suffering, because she may feel better able to brush off the harassment precisely because she knows that nothing she did or could have done would have prevented it; she may feel empowered by her awareness that she is integral to a broader struggle to demand that all women be treated as full persons.
Distinguishing between "individual" and "group" harms has a certain analytic convenience, but in the context of workplace harassment, at least, this distinction can conflate very different things to the detriment of doctrinal clarity and practical advancement. More specifically, in much of the discussion of Title VII antidiscrimination doctrine, the tendency to conceptualize sexual harassment as a "group harm" has conflated the nature of the harm of sexual harassment, a dignitary harm, with the context in which that harm occurs: a context of discrimination against women.
D. THE IMPORTANCE OF DISAGGREGATION
The harm of sexual harassment must be disaggregated from its context. Otherwise, no clear and nonarbitrary basis exists for permitting some claims, but not others, under Title VII. Moreover, disaggregating the harm and its context points the way to a clearer vision of the wrong of all workplace harassment, sexual or nonsexual, regardless of whether the motive for harassment is discriminatory or not. Disaggregation also permits movement away from an essentialist paradigm of workplace harassment, which places primary emphasis on women's differences from others, and toward an approach that acknowledges the realities of gender-based discrimination while simultaneously offering a dignity and equality-based paradigm for understanding harassment; this paradigm emphasizes that women have the right to be free from workplace harassment simply because they are human beings.
The fact that much male workplace harassment of women arises out of hostility to the presence of women in traditionally male domains has deep implications for policy and prevention. Nonetheless, we need an understanding of workplace harassment that can encompass both discriminatory harassment of women, by men, and all other kinds of workplace harassment as well -- whether the harassment is directed at women or men, by women or men, whether motivated by discriminatory animus or not, n70 and whether sexual in nature or not.
Disaggregating the nature of the harm of workplace harassment from the context of the harm allows for an articulation of what is wrong with instances of harassment that do not fit into the classic paradigm, specifically instances of harassment that do not involve men harassing women. n71 Focusing on the dignitary harms of workplace sexual harassment also allows for movement beyond a narrow focus on sexualized harassment. Understanding sexual harassment as a dignitary harm that insults the dignity, autonomy, and personhood of the victim makes easier a view that sexualized harassment is not the only way a harasser can insult his victim's dignity and personhood: many nonsexualized behaviors can also degrade, frighten, and torment. n72
Disaggregation is important for another reason, as well; when faced with the classic sexual harassment paradigm, in which a woman is sexually harassed by a man, disaggregating the harm from its context reveals a critical moral and political point, one that emphasizes what all humans, male and female, have in common, rather than emphasizing an essentialist vision in which men and women are forever different and opposed. n73
Male sexual harassment of women is, indeed, part of a broad problem of societal discrimination against women. However, male sexual harassment of women is not wrong because women are uniquely vulnerable to men, because men are always vulgar and loutish, or because women have "special" sensitivities and rights that men do not share. These essentialist assumptions are fostered by the tendency of many commentators to emphasize the context of sexual harassment over the nature of harms (or, put differently, to emphasize that it is a "group harm" rather than an "individual harm").
Such essentialist misunderstandings of the wrong of sexual harassment have contributed to a growing societal backlash against women who complain of sexual harassment. n74 Emphasizing the dignitary nature of the harm of sexual harassment instead of focusing exclusively on its discriminatory context can do a great deal to diminish the strength of this backlash. By focusing on the nature of the harm of sexual harassment, sexual harassment is viewed as wrong not because it wrongs women, but because such treatment would deeply wrong any human being, regardless of sex. n75
III. LOOKING TO THE COMMON LAW
A. THE CONCEPT OF DIGNITARY HARM
The common law of tort poses a promising way to understand and address the many forms of workplace harassment. Modern tort law embraces the concept of "dignitary harm," a harm that injures "personality interests" rather than one's physical well-being. n76 While the common-law notion of harm to one's dignity or personality interests may not bear intense philosophical scrutiny, its core assumptions are clear enough: all individuals share in "personhood," are autonomous and unique, and are entitled to be treated with respect. Actions that would humiliate, torment, threaten, intimidate, pressure, demean, frighten, outrage, or injure a reasonable person n77 are actions that can be said to injure an individual's dignitary interests and, if sufficiently severe, can give rise to causes of action in tort.
The application of modern tort law to workplace harassment is probably best understood by a brief description of some of the torts currently recognized as having to do with dignitary harms. n78 Consider, first, the intentional torts: assault, battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, all of which are designed to provide redress for mental disturbances such as "fright, revulsion [and] humiliation." n79
A "battery" is "a harmful or offensive contact with a person," made with intent. n80 The Restatement of Torts comments that for the purposes of this tort, "a bodily contact is offensive if it offends a reasonable sense of personal dignity" and is "unwarranted by the social usages prevalent at the time and place at which it is inflicted." n81
"Assault," which, according to Prosser and Keeton, goes together with battery "like ham and eggs," is "an act of such a nature as to excite an apprehension of a battery." n82 Prosser and Keeton regard the torts of assault and battery as entitling plaintiffs to "protection according to the usages of decent society, and offensive contacts, or those which are contrary to all good manners, need not be tolerated." n83
The tort of false imprisonment also involves emotional distress and dignitary harm, creating a cause of action when a person is confined against her will. In application, the tort is fairly broad; it protects plaintiffs who have been forced to stay in a room by a person who physically bars their exit, even if only for a relatively short period, just as it protects plaintiffs who literally have been wrongly confined in a prison cell.
The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is equally broad. n84 According to the Restatement of Torts, "one who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress." n85 At the time of the Restatement of Torts, most jurisdictions applied different standards to agents of common carriers, inns, and public utilities on the one hand and to ordinary defendants on the other. For an ordinary defendant to be liable for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, the distress induced had to be severe, beyond "mere insult, indignity, annoyance, or even threats . . . lacking in other circumstances of aggravation." n86 For agents of common carriers and the like, however, who are deemed to have "special obligations to the public," language which is "merely profane, or indecent, or grossly insulting to people of ordinary sensibility" is enough to give rise to liability. n87
The intentional torts are not the only tort causes of action that protect dignitary interests. The torts of invasion of privacy and defamation do so as well. "Invasion of privacy" is usually deemed to consist of four distinct sub-torts: the wrongful appropriation of an individual's name or image, unreasonable intrusion upon an individual's seclusion ("seclusion" here applies to an individual's body as well as his or her home or private concerns), the public disclosure of private facts about an individual, and publicity that places an individual in "a false light" in the public eye. n88 The tort of defamation has to do with "an invasion of the interest in reputation and good name" and consists of two sub-torts: libel and slander. Both libel and slander involve the communication to third parties of information that would tend "to injure 'reputation' in the popular sense; to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill, or confidence in which the plaintiff is held, or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against him." n89 Libel is the "publication of defamatory matters" in writing or other permanent form; slander is essentially spoken defamation. n90
All of these tort causes of action rest on certain underlying assumptions about human dignity, privacy, and personality -- assumptions that the courts rarely seek to justify or even articulate, but that they make nonetheless. These assumptions are familiar to us from constitutional jurisprudence: in Goldberg v. Kelly, n91 the Supreme Court declared, "From its founding the Nation's basic commitment has been to foster the dignity and well-being of all persons within its borders." n92 Abortion cases generally fall back upon notions of human dignity as well: thus, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, n93 the Court noted that decisions relating to marriage and procreation are "choices central to personal dignity and autonomy." n94 In the realm of criminal justice, the Court has also insisted that human dignity is an essential concept; each individual must "be evaluated as a unique human being," the dissent declared in McCleskey v. Kemp. n95 In Miranda v. Arizona, n96 the Court spoke of the government's obligation to respect "the dignity and integrity of its citizens." n97
In First Amendment jurisprudence, the concern is the same: "The right of a man to the protection of his own reputation from unjustified invasion and wrongful hurt reflects no more than our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being -- a concept at the root of any decent system of ordered liberty," commented Justice Stewart in Rosenblatt v. Baer. n98 The Court has been equally clear that "human dignity" implies an individual's right to control the boundaries of the self. In United States v. White, n99 the Court noted, "The individual must keep some facts concerning his thoughts within a small zone of people. At the same time he must be free to pour out his woes or inspirations or dreams to others. He remains the sole judge as to what must be said and what must remain unspoken." n100
In U.S. constitutional jurisprudence, these assumptions about personhood and dignity are, perhaps, best understood as imports from a centuries-old common-law tradition; within the common-law tradition, they can be best understood as norms about how individuals should behave and how communities should function. To articulate and defend a philosophically coherent notion of "personhood" or "dignity" may or may not be possible. However, the application of tort conceptions of "dignity" to workplace harassment rests not on an argument that courts should adopt a particular conception of human dignity and personality, but instead rests on a recognition that courts simply do assume that human beings have a certain inherent dignity and that this dignity may not be violated, either by the state or by other private individuals. n101 Further, a real connection exists between the assumptions about human dignity made by the courts and the assumptions about human dignity that most Americans hold. n102
This project of discussing the assumptions inherent in the tort causes of action mentioned above is descriptive; indeed, in a deep sense, the project of the common law itself is descriptive. n103 As Robert Post observed, "the common law attempts not to search out and articulate first ethical principles, as would a certain kind of moral philosopher, but instead to discover and refresh the social norms by which we live." n104 The common law assumes both that there is such a thing as human dignity and that human dignity requires that each individual have substantial control over what may be called the "boundaries of the self." n105 Most obviously, human dignity requires that people be able to control other people's access to their physical selves. The boundaries of their physical selves, of course, are protected by the existence of causes of action for assault and battery (and, to some extent, by the tort of invasion of privacy).
Human dignity in the common-law sense, however, also requires the maintenance of control over "personality," the intangible, nonphysical aspects of the self. From this common-law notion of "inviolate personality," Warren and Brandeis derived the tort of invasion of privacy, which they saw as "part of the general right to the immunity of the person -- the right to one's personality." n106 To another commentator, the common law notion of privacy (in the broad sense, rather than in the narrow sense of the tort) is "control over when and by whom the various parts of us can be sensed by others." n107
The tort causes of action discussed above contain a cluster of associated ideas: dignity, autonomy, personhood and personality, selfhood, privacy, decency, respect, and so on. In the common law, these ideas tend not to be defined abstractly; their contours become most apparent in their breach. Opposed to the notions of dignity and personhood are notions of invasion, intrusion, outrage, affront, insult, incivility, humiliation, and degradation. To Robert Post, the common law allows recovery for violations of the "rules of decency" acknowledged by reasonable people, because it recognizes that such violations "damage a person by discrediting his identity and injuring his personality." n108 Similarly, Prosser and Keeton, discussing the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, note that "so far as it is possible to generalize from the cases, the rule which seems to have emerged is that there is liability for conduct exceeding all bounds usually tolerated by decent society." n109
It is tempting to try to define and clarify the fuzzy notion of the "boundaries of the self." Such a definition might begin with a statement that certain kinds of issues -- sexuality, intimate family relationships, personal character flaws, deeply held religious beliefs, personal finances, and personal appearance -- are all "private" and should be off limits to all but intimate associates at all times. However, exceptions are easily imagined; there are situations in which probing in these areas is not merely accepted but approved. To state the obvious, "rules of decency" are context-dependent. Few kinds of behavior are "always" an affront to human dignity, n110 and efforts to map out the private territory that is "off limits" generally fall down when confronted with context-specific examples. Behavior that is appropriate at a party or a singles bar might be deeply inappropriate and offensive to a reasonable person at a funeral -- or in the workplace. A question that is not intrusive when asked by a close friend or even by a new social acquaintance might reasonably be deemed offensive when asked by a stranger at the bus stop or by one's boss at work.
In Post's formulation, then, common-law cases involving dignitary harms are not about delineating abstract boundaries, but about "characterizing social norms"; a plaintiff is entitled to relief if the defendant "has transgressed the kind of social norms whose violation would properly be viewed with outrage and affront . . . [for] the integrity of individual personality is dependent upon the observance of certain kinds of social norms." n111
B. THE RELEVANCE OF THE TORT NOTION OF DIGNITARY HARM TO WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
1. Relevance to Sexual Harassment in the Paradigmatic Sense
When we think about sexual harassment cases, the relevance of these commonlaw notions of human dignity -- and therefore tort causes of action like assault, battery, invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress -- should be obvious at once. The harm of sexual harassment is in many ways a quintessential dignitary harm: n112 paradigmatic cases of sexual harassment involve the transgression of social norms involving the boundaries of both the physical self and the "personality." n113 Sexual harassment subjects an individual to behavior that violates basic standards of decency and privacy; rather than choosing the people with whom she will become intimate, the victim of sexual harassment has sexual intimacies forced upon her by her harasser. n114 This distinction is true whether the intimacies are physical or verbal because sexual harassment, by its nature, takes from the victim the right to be "sole judge as to what must be said and what must remain unspoken." n115
If the harm of sexual harassment is a dignitary harm, then these torts offer potential remedies, above and beyond any that might be offered by Title VII. Consider, for example, a hypothetical:
Jane works at Big Boy Industries, a diversified company that manufactures guns, race cars, cigars, and whisky. Her supervisor, Ed, comes to her one day as she is leaving the supply closet and says, "I sure like your dress, gal! Are you wearing a bra?" Jane tries to step past Ed, but he blocks the way. "I just want to see if you have a bra on," chortles Ed. "And undies -- you got them on?" Jane tries again to step past Ed, who again blocks the way. "Cut it out, Ed -- leave me alone!" says Jane. "Oh no," says Ed. "If you won't tell me if you're wearing underwear, I'll just have to look for myself." With that, he pushes Jane back into the supply closet and grabs at her clothes, trying to push them aside. Jane yells, loudly, and a passerby calls out, "Anything wrong?" Ed abruptly lets go of Jane, and she manages to rush past him.
In the days and weeks that follow, Ed launches a vendetta against Jane. He follows her around at work, mocking her. He rifles through her belongings and leaves pornographic materials on her desk. She overhears him telling coworkers that she's "an ugly, man-hating bitch, and she'll say anything to get a man in trouble." He informs coworkers that Jane has been married -- and divorced -- four times, which is not true, and theorizes that this fictitious disastrous marital history is because "she can't keep a man." Jane soon finds that many of her coworkers avoid her or, worse, also begin to sneer at her.
Although Jane repeatedly asks Ed to stop, he pays no attention, even though his persecution often leaves her angry and upset. Jane also complains repeatedly to another member of the supervisory staff at Big Boy Industries, who promises to look into the situation, but nothing changes at all. One day, after complaining vociferously about Ed's actions, Jane arrives at work to find that Ed has taken a photo of a nude woman, put a picture of Jane's head on top of it, and posted copies of this on all the company's bulletin boards, with the caption, "Sluts shouldn't tell lies."
The hypothetical may sound exaggerated, but compared to the facts of many real sexual harassment cases, it is not a particularly extreme example of what many women endure in the workplace. n116 And "Jane," were she real, could assert multiple tort-based causes of action against Ed and Big Boy Industries.
Consider, as background, assumptions made about the kinds of behavior that are expected in the workplace. When going to work, employees expect to enter a realm in which their treatment will be based on their job descriptions. n117 To the extent that employees are judged by others, they expect to be judged based on whether or not they are doing their jobs well, not on attractiveness, sex or race, or willingness to discuss the most intimate aspects of their lives. While we may expect to make friends -- and perhaps even form intimate relationships -- with people we meet in the workplace, we assume that they have no more right to query us on non-work-related issues than any stranger standing next to us at the bus stop, unless and until we signal to them that a different kind of behavior would be acceptable. n118
Returning to the facts given in the hypothetical, Ed's demand to look for himself to determine whether Jane wore underwear, accompanied by his gestures, might reasonably be viewed as assault by a jury. A jury could certainly take the view that Ed's actions would have "[offended] a reasonable sense of personal dignity," in the sense of the Restatement of Torts and were clearly "unwarranted by the social usages prevalent at the time and place at which [they were] inflicted." n119 Ed's subsequent pushing and grabbing would likely be seen by a court as constituting battery and, probably, invasion of privacy -- an intrusion into the physical boundaries of the self. Ed's refusal to let Jane out of the supply closet could constitute false imprisonment. Rifling through Jane's belongings could also be said to constitute invasion of privacy, and telling false stories about Jane's marital history might be seen as constituting "false light" invasion of privacy as well as slander, because it could have -- and apparently did -- damage Jane's "reputation and good name." Ed's posting of the nude photo with Jane's face above it might similarly constitute "false light" invasion of privacy as well as the wrongful appropriation of her image and libel.
In whole, Ed's actions can also be said to constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress: his actions might well be viewed by a reasonable person as extending far beyond "mere insult, indignity or annoyance." n120 Jane would likely have a strong cause of action against Ed, and also against Big Boy Industries, because whether an agency standard or a negligence standard is applied, Big Boy is likely to be deemed liable for Jane's dignitary injuries.
2. From Sexual Harassment to an Expansive Concept of Workplace Harassment
The language of the Restatement of Torts does not privilege sexual harms over nonsexual harms. In fact, much, if not most, of the case law on these torts concerns nonsexual harms. While the applicability of these common-law causes of action to "classic" situations of workplace sexual harassment is self-evident, the causes of action would be equally applicable both to less common kinds of sexual harassment (for instance, same-sex sexual harassment) and to workplace harassment that is not sexual in nature. Consider another hypothetical:
Albert, a white male, works as a busboy in a restaurant. One day, he drops a tray. His supervisor, Bill -- also a white male -- shouts at him in front of several coworkers and customers, saying, "Albert, you stupid moron! You're an ugly, fat slob and don't deserve this job! I've never had anyone this stupid and incompetent work here before!"
From that day on, Bill singles Albert out for abuse. Although Albert's coworkers tell him that he does his job as well as -- or better than -- any other busboy, Bill repeatedly shouts at him in the presence of others, always making negative comments about his intelligence, coordination, physical appearance, and body odor and shouting that Albert is lazy, greedy, obese, and weak. When Albert's girlfriend comes to pick him up one day, Bill tells her (in front of the other busboys), "Too bad you're involved with such a smelly, pathetic, incompetent, mewling moron!" Bill's taunts often reduce Albert to near tears.
When Albert protests to Bill about his treatment, Bill curses at him, grabs him by the shirt-collar, and says, "I do as I goddamn please, and you keep your mouth shut about it or I'll kick your fat ass!" Looking Albert up and down, he says, "You're so fat, it's disgusting! I bet you have ugly rolls of fat all over you -- let's see!" Saying that, he tears open Albert's shirt, looks him over, scornfully, and says, "Yup, too greedy and stupid to figure out how to diet." Albert complains to Bill's superiors, who refuse to discipline Bill or transfer Albert. Eventually, Albert quits.
This, like the earlier hypothetical, may seem extreme. Empirical research indicates, however, that this scenario too is hardly atypical. n121 Indeed, a recent survey by the International Labour Organization found that "bullying -- targeting an employee for intimidation -- and mobbing -- ganging up on an employee -- are among the fastest growing complaints of American workers." n122 Even serious physical violence is hardly unknown in the workplace. The Department of Labor reported that there were 912 workplace homicides in 1996, and the Center for Disease Control declared workplace homicide a "serious public health epidemic." n123 For many workers, especially, but not exclusively, blue-collar and service workers, n124 going to work involves checking one's dignity at the door -- subjecting oneself to a daily round of taunts and abuse about issues unrelated to legitimate questions of work performance. Although the workplace may be thought of as a site of liberation and growth, for many Americans the workplace is a site of daily humiliation and misery, endured out of economic necessity.
Obviously, Albert might assert numerous common-law causes of action against Bill. Bill's comments about his stupidity, laziness, greed, and so on might be considered defamatory by a jury: "they could certainly be deemed to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence" in which Albert is held and "excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against him." n125 Bill grabbed Albert by the shirt collar and threatened to kick his "fat ass" unless Albert stopped complaining of his abusive treatment, and Bill then ripped open Albert's shirt buttons. A jury could certainly find this action to be an "offensive contact . . . contrary to all good manners." n126 Bill could be said to have committed assault and battery, as well as invasion of privacy. In whole, Bill's behavior might well be viewed by a jury as constituting intentional infliction of emotional distress. n127 To the extent that Bill's acts were within the scope of his employment or that his employer knew or should have known of the harassment but failed to intervene, Albert's employer might also be liable for Bill's tortious acts.
C. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Using tort causes of action appears to offer a promising way to approach workplace harassment. One might wonder, then, why most commentators instead made Title VII the sole focus of the debate about sexual harassment. n128
1. Early Feminist Arguments Against a Tort-Based Approach
Catharine MacKinnon considered the possibility of common-law tort remedies for sexual harassment in her 1979 book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women, but she quickly rejected the idea. n129 At the time MacKinnon wrote, "sexual harassment," as a concept, barely existed outside of feminist circles; to the extent people thought about it, it was considered an isolated problem analogous to other forms of rudeness.
MacKinnon's book, more than any other single work, helped establish that the behaviors now thought of as sexual harassment occurred in patterned ways -- that is, most of the time, men harassed women -- and that sexual harassment of women in the workplace was part of a broader pattern of male attempts to dominate women and prevent them from gaining access to social and economic power: sexual harassment "perpetuates the interlocked structure by which women have been kept sexually in thrall to men and at the bottom of the labor market." n130 To MacKinnon, sexual harassment "makes of women's sexuality a badge of servitude" n131 and "limits women in a way men are not limited. It deprives them of opportunities that are available to male employees without sexual conditions." n132
MacKinnon viewed as critical an understanding of sexual harassment as something that was done to women by men, not as something that occasionally happened to be done to a particular woman by a particular man. Sexual harassment happens "because one is a woman, rather than [because one is] a person who just happens to be a woman." n133 Thus, MacKinnon distinguished between individual harms and group harms; to MacKinnon, sexual harassment was the quintessential group harm.
To MacKinnon, traditional tort law, almost by its very nature, was ill-suited for recognizing such "group harms." As MacKinnon commented, "By treating the incidents [of sexual harassment] as if they are outrages particular to an individual woman rather than integral to her social status as a woman worker, the personal approach on the legal level fails to analyze the relevant dimensions of the problem." n134 With its emphasis on individual behavior -- individual intent or negligence, and individual suffering -- tort law seemed poorly equipped as a means of pointing out that sexual harassment was part of large-scale male backlash against women in the workplace. To the typical judge, such arguments smacked of paranoid feminist conspiracy theories and had little relevance to proving the elements of a cause of action.
For instance, torts such as the intentional infliction of emotional distress required plaintiffs to show that the conduct that led to their emotional distress was truly "outrageous" and would be so to a reasonable person. Early attempts to litigate using this tort met with little success: what was so outrageous about a dirty joke or a crude proposition, judges and juries tended to wonder? n135 Early plaintiffs who complained about such behavior tended to be viewed as abnormally thin-skinned by male judges who could not see why come-ons, however crude, should not be seen as compliments and who could not understand why women should not just have to put up with dirty jokes if they wanted to participate in a male world. The common law showed little ability to take into account broad socio-historical changes like the massive influx of women into the workplace and showed less ability to understand that while one crude proposition to one woman on the job might not be earth-shattering, when thousands of women faced this in the workplace everyday, the series of comments could become a significant bar to the workplace happiness and advancement of women as a group.
As many commentators have noted, the mythical "reasonable person" of the common law changes his (usually his) mind only very slowly, n136 and in 1979, little reason seemed to exist to think that tort law would ever be progressive or flexible enough to compensate women for sexual harassment. As MacKinnon ruefully noted, common-law remedies seemed inadequate to address "the social reality of men's sexual treatment of women[;] . . . although the facts of sex discrimination have a long history in women's suffering, the prohibition on sex discrimination as such lacks a common law history." n137
2. Turning to Title VII
To many feminists, a statutory approach to sexual harassment seemed more promising. But early attempts to litigate sexual harassment cases under Title VII met with as little success as tort approaches, because judges tended to view sexually harassing behavior as arising out of the "personal proclivities" of the harasser, rather than out of the discriminatory policies of the employer. Thus, in Corne v. Bausch & Lomb, n138 decided in 1975, the court declared that "by his alleged sexual advances," the harasser "was satisfying a personal urge. Certainly no employer policy is here involved." n139 The following year, in Tomkins v. Public Service Electric & Gas Co., n140 the judge found that the sexual advances complained of by the plaintiff were the result of "natural sexual attraction" and noted that "if plaintiff's view were to prevail . . . an invitation to dinner could become an invitation to a federal lawsuit." n141
Nonetheless, Title VII continued to seem, to feminists, an appropriate tool for sexual harassment test cases, and the end of the 1970s saw the beginning of a sea change in judicial attitudes toward sexual harassment. Between 1975 and 1979, when MacKinnon's book was published, several major feminist studies of sexual harassment appeared. Although many lower courts, like those in Corne and Tomkins, required plaintiffs to show that quid pro quo sexual harassment formed part of an official employer policy in order to prevail under Title VII -- a standard that was virtually impossible to meet -- appeals courts began increasingly to overrule the lower courts, using arguments similar to those made in the feminist literature. In 1977, Corne and Tomkins were both reversed on appeal. n142 In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the federal agency charged with overseeing Title VII), perhaps influenced by this outpouring of feminist scholarship, changed its guidelines to clarify the appropriate standard for Title VII employer liability. As of 1980, the EEOC declared:
[An employer] is responsible for its acts and those of its agents or supervisory employees with respect to sexual harassment regardless of whether the specific acts complained of were authorized or even forbidden by the employer and regardless of whether the employer knew or should have known of their occurrence . . . With respect to conduct between fellow employees, an employer is responsible for acts of sexual harassment in the workplace where the employer (or its agents or supervisory employees) knows or should have known of the conduct, unless it can show that it took immediate and appropriate corrective action. n143 By the early 1980s, courts had begun to hold that hostile-environment harassment also violated Title VII. n144 And in 1986, the Supreme Court finally weighed in with a unanimous decision. In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, n145 Justice Rehnquist said firmly that "without question, when a supervisor sexually harasses a subordinate because of the subordinate's sex, that supervisor 'discriminates' on the basis of sex." n146
As Franke has noted, Justice Rehnquist "treated the legal conclusion as entirely self-evident" n147 and made no effort to justify or explain it. Justice Rehnquist's blithe comment suggested that he saw Title VII as a statute that was fundamentally gender-neutral -- one that would protect men being harassed by women as much as it would protect women harassed by men. To Justice Rehnquist, Title VII was about formal equality -- not about correcting a centuries-old pattern of discrimination against women. But in the celebratory mood that prevailed in the wake of the Court's decision in Meritor, this undoubtedly seemed a minor quibble. The feminists had, it seemed, won the battle, and, for better or for worse, sexual harassment litigation and debate would center around Title VII from then on.
Today -- twenty years after MacKinnon concluded that tort law could not provide an adequate remedy for sexual harassment and thirteen years after the Court's landmark decision in Meritor -- Title VII has created as many doctrinal puzzles as it has solved. n148 As noted in the preceding sections, cases involving same-sex sexual harassment have baffled the courts, leading to a wide variety of approaches in different jurisdictions, n149 and cases in which men have allegedly been harassed by women have also proven troublesome, in a political sense. n150
In an ironic twist, feminists focused their energies on Title VII precisely because they saw it as the only way to raise public and judicial awareness of the discriminatory context in which most workplace sexual harassment takes place. To MacKinnon and many others, failing to understand that sexual harassment was a problem, faced, above all, by women was to miss the most fundamental point of all. Yet in the years that followed the initial feminist successes with Title VII, the statute has been used, more and more often, to protect people other than women sexually harassed by men. n151
On the level of purely formal equality, universal protection is, of course, fair enough -- Rehnquist's words in Meritor paved the way for such efforts, and few would suggest that men who are harassed by men, or women harassed by women, or men harassed by women, should have no remedy. But, from a feminist perspective, these cases may appear to dilute, even betray, Title VII's promise. n152 Formal equality, as feminists know well, can be a Trojan horse.
Women who have been harassed by men are not the only "real" victims of sexual harassment. Many of the cases involving male-to-male sexual harassment, for instance, involve facts that shock the conscience, and a man who is sexually harassed by a woman may endure humiliation and fear that is both real and worthy of sympathy. But if the purpose of Title VII was to protect individuals who are also members of discrete and vulnerable groups from abuses by those with more power, n153 these may not be the kinds of cases feminists want brought under Title VII.
Let us revisit, for a moment, the distinction drawn earlier between the nature of the harm of sexual harassment -- a dignitary harm -- and the context in which the harm occurs -- centuries of discrimination against women. All cases of workplace sexual harassment damage the victim's dignitary interests regardless of the victim's gender or the harasser's gender. However, not all cases of sexual harassment plausibly can be seen as connected, in any proximate way, to discrimination against women in the workplace. n154
D. A SECOND LOOK AT TORT REMEDIES FOR "CLASSIC" CASES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT
A tort approach to sexual harassment would seem to offer a route around these conundrums. Nonetheless, of the hundreds of serious scholarly articles about sexual harassment, only a handful attempt to examine the issue of applying tort law to sexual harassment in the workplace. n155 MacKinnon's dismissal of tort law was sharp and effective, and, perhaps unsurprising, few scholars in the two decades since then have been willing to try to resuscitate a tort approach to sexual harassment. n156 The authors of two student notes written in the mid-1980s were the first to make the attempt, but though provocative and well reasoned, the notes had little influence. n157 More recently, Ellen Paul and Mark Hager have re-examined the idea of a tort approach to sexual harassment, but they have done so from a perspective that is, in many ways, decidedly antifeminist. n158
Hager and Paul both argue for the virtual evisceration of Title VII. They insist that it is more or less impossible to view sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination and that, in general, employers should not be liable for work-place sexual harassment. They utterly reject the MacKinnonesque characterization of sexual harassment as a "group harm" and argue that such a characterization merely leads to essentialism and "victimology." n159 Thus, Hager says, "My point in a nutshell is that harassment should be met with tort suits against actual perpetrators, not discrimination suits against employers . . . 'hostile environments' [should] not be viewed as employment discrimination, without proof of employer policy." He states categorically that "sexual harassment [should] be viewed as an offense to personal dignity and autonomy, not as a species of gender discrimination"; n160 the Title VII approach "encourages a dependent . . . and passive form of feminism." n161 Paul similarly argues that courts have "unwittingly imported philosophical assumptions from a radical agenda" into Title VII jurisprudence, which consequently promotes "victimology." n162 She argues that a tort approach to sexual harassment is better than a Title VII approach because "it gets the federal courts out of what is essentially a personal matter between individuals . . . it places fault where fault truly lies -- with the perpetrator." Better still, a tort approach forces women to "take responsibility for their lives." n163
Turning to recent feminist scholarship, only Anita Bernstein has made a real effort to apply tort concepts to sexual harassment jurisprudence. n164 Bernstein argues that courts have relied excessively on a "reasonable person" standard (in some jurisdictions, a "reasonable woman" standard) in evaluating claims of hostile environment sexual harassment brought under Title VII. n165 She suggests replacing this reasonableness standard with what she terms a "respectful person" standard. Instead of asking whether the plaintiff "reasonably" felt that certain behaviors created a hostile environment, courts would ask whether a "respectful person" would have behaved in the ways alleged by the plaintiff.
Bernstein traces her concept of the "respectful person" to the deeply held assumptions about dignity and personhood that pervade the common-law tradition, and she makes no bones about her "enthusiasm for torts." n166 But although she favors importing a standard with a long tort law pedigree into Title VII jurisprudence, she stops there. Bernstein does not make what would appear to be the obvious move: to argue that tort law could and should provide a supplement and an alternative to Title VII.
The time is ripe to re-examine the possibility of using tort law to understand and address cases of sexual harassment. If tort concepts can be successfully used as a means of responding to workplace sexual harassment, tort law offers a way out of the dilemmas of Title VII doctrine. n167 Cases of sexual harassment that do not seem to be motivated by sex discrimination could be brought using tort-based causes of action, while cases that are motivated by sex discrimination could continue to be brought under Title VII, accompanied, when appropriate, by supplemental tort claims.
This argument is most fundamentally one of principle, rather than pragmatics, and tort law, in its current state, may not offer a panacea for victims of workplace harassment. But tort law does offer a set of concepts and terms, rules and principles, that may help us break free from the Procrustean bed that Title VII has become. Tort law permits us to conceive of workplace harassment in a way that separates the dignitary nature of the harm from the discriminatory context of the harm. A review of several recent cases suggests that some courts are willing to be flexible in applying tort doctrine to situations of workplace harassment. n168
1. Stockett v. Tolin
In Stockett v. Tolin, n169 the plaintiff alleged that her supervisor, Tolin, subjected her to repeated sexually harassing behavior, which included, "grabbing her breasts and nipples, running his fingers up her shirt and grabbing her from behind. . . . [Tolin] physically confined [Stockett] in her chair on at least two occasions during which he fondled her breasts and pinned her up against the wall with his body on at least one occasion." n170 Tolin also, on one occasion, followed Stockett into the women's bathroom. n171
Stockett filed suit under Title VII, but she also asserted a range of state tort claims, including battery, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment. The case was tried in federal court in the Southern District of Florida. The parties waived the right to a jury trial, and the court found in favor of Stockett on both the statutory and common-law claims:
Tolin's groping and kissing of Stockett constituted both an offensive and unwelcome touching (i.e., battery) and an invasion of her physical solitude (invasion of privacy). Tolin's battery of Plaintiff -- the repeated and offensive touching of the most private parts of Plaintiff's body -- constitutes an intrusion into her physical solitude. Similarly, the act of entering the ladies bathroom constitutes an invasion of her privacy. In addition, the act of pinning Plaintiff against the wall and refusing to allow her to escape, even though only done for a short period of time, was false imprisonment. Further, the evidence establishes repeated physical attacks, as well as repeated verbal licentiousness. Tolin's conduct toward Stockett can only be characterized as being wanton, willful, and in total disregard of her rights. An ordinary prudent person, viewing his cumulative behavior, would be compelled to find this to be outrageous. The sum total of Tolin's conduct therefore also constituted an intentional infliction of emotional distress. n172
The court also declared that punitive damages could be assessed against the corporation Tolin worked for because Tolin was a managing partner and part-owner. n173
2. Godfrey v. Perkin-Elmer Corp.
In Godfrey v. Perkin-Elmer Corp., n174 a New Hampshire court held that allegations of sexually harassing behavior that included frequent suggestive comments, demeaning language, insulting remarks made in front of coworkers, staring, and "sitting and standing inordinately close, often in a sexually suggestive manner" could, if proved, be viewed as constituting both intentional infliction of emotional distress and slander. n175 The court also noted that because Godfrey's employer, Perkin-Elmer, allegedly had been informed of the harassment and made no attempt to investigate or remedy it, Perkin-Elmer would be liable if a jury held in favor of the plaintiff.
In reaching this conclusion, the court declared that the conduct alleged by Godfrey was "beyond the ordinary run of insult and offense which people are expected to encounter. . . ." n176 The court approvingly quoted Prosser and Keeton on Torts, noting that "the extreme and outrageous nature of the conduct may arise not so much from what is done as the abuse by the defendant of some relation or position which gives the defendant actual or apparent power to damage the plaintiff's interests." n177
The Godfrey court also held that the plaintiff had stated an actionable claim for slander. According to the plaintiff, the defendant told her, in the presence of several coworkers, "Your job isn't important and doesn't require brains." n178 On another occasion, again in front of coworkers, he said, "You have a bad attitude. You have a lot of growing up to do. You should learn what you're doing here. Who do you think you're working for?" n179
Assessing these remarks, the court disputed the notion that defendant's comments were mere "opinion." The standard, the court noted, is based upon "the average person":
If that average . . . hearer could reasonably understand a statement as actionably factual, then there is an issue for the jury's determination, precluding dismissal or summary judgment. . . . The court is satisfied that such a remark as "your job isn't important and doesn't require brains" is easily susceptible of being verified as true or false and that an average hearer could thus reasonably hear those words to defame the plaintiff. n180
In evaluating the second statement, the court observed that the statement had to be viewed with the recognition that the plaintiff had "suffered through more than a year of sexually-suggestive and demeaning comments and conduct, and her requests to have such behavior cease had been ignored." n181 Given this context, "such comments, from a superior at one's place of employment, after over one year on the job, quite reasonably could be understood to imply the existence of defamatory fact." n182 The defendant's statements "clearly imply plaintiff did not know what she was doing, also a matter capable of verification." n183
3. Priest v. Rotary
In Priest v. Rotary, n184 Evelyn June Priest alleged that she was sexually harassed by her employer, George Rotary, while working as a waitress at the Fireside Coffee Shoppe. She filed suit under Title VII and also asserted several tort causes of action: false imprisonment, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial court made the following findings of fact:
During the first week of plaintiff's employment, while the plaintiff was in the kitchen doing the dishes, defendant came up behind plaintiff Priest, put his arms around her waist and placed his hands on her breasts and tried to kiss her on the neck. . . . On another occasion, defendant came up behind plaintiff as she was picking up a tray full of orders at the pick up station and placed his hands on her waist and breast. . . . On another occasion, Mr. Rotary came up behind Ms. Priest while she was in the hallway next to the Fireside kitchen and trapped her between himself and another male employee, pressing his body against her and preventing her from being able to move away. . . . Ms. Priest told Rotary on numerous occasions that his conduct was distressful and upsetting to her. . . . Defendant Rotary exposed his genitals to plaintiff [and another female coworker] as they were having a cup of coffee following the end of Ms. Priest's shift. Defendant did so by quickly pulling down his pants in such a way that [they] could see his genitals. n185
Applying the law to these facts, the trial court had no hesitation concluding that Rotary's conduct inflicted on Priest "highly unpleasant mental reactions, including fright, humiliation, shock, surprise, sickness, nervousness, apprehension, disgust, emotional pain, intimidation, anger, worry, substantial sleeplessness, nausea, and anxiety." n186 The Court was careful to state that Rotary's actions were truly outrageous in the terms demanded by the Restatement: Rotary's actions consisted of "more than mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, and petty oppression. . . . [The Court finds that] the conduct of defendant Rotary was of an extreme and outrageous nature, such that his conduct went beyond the bounds of decency, and no reasonable person could be expected to endure it." n187 The court also found Rotary liable for "unlawful and offensive touching," n188 constituting assault and battery and for false imprisonment because he "intentionally confined, restrained, and detained plaintiff . . . without her consent and without lawful privilege." n189
4. Kanzler v. Renner
In Kanzler v. Renner, n190 a 1997 case, the Wyoming Supreme Court showed a similar willingness to interpret traditional tort categories broadly in order to compensate a victim of workplace sexual harassment. As the court recounts it, plaintiff Kanzler, a police dispatcher, alleged that her coworker, Renner, engaged in harassing behavior: he repeatedly followed her home in a squad car, and at work, he would come to her work space and "sit close to her and stare at her for long periods of time while she was attempting to do her radio-dispatch job." Renner also allegedly subjected Kanzler to repeated unwanted touchings: for instance, he asked her when she would, "Teach him to two-step," and "later that night . . . Renner approached [Kanzler], grabbed her, pulled her body up to his, and started to slow dance. She told him to leave her alone and pushed him away." Finally, he "followed her into the [utility] closet and pulled the door shut behind him. The light was not on. Renner grabbed Kanzler and pulled her to him. She pushed away from him and the door flew open . . . [he] pulled the door shut. Kanzler states that she was very scared and angry and that she attempted to call for help on a portable radio that was inside the closet. As she reached for the radio, Renner tried to grab it away from her, and she managed to escape from the closet." n191
Renner moved for summary judgment, arguing that his conduct did not amount to "intentional infliction of emotional distress." The trial court agreed, and Kanzler, the plaintiff, appealed. n192
In assessing Kanzler's case, the Wyoming Supreme court noted that Wyoming adopted the Restatement's definition of "outrageous conduct" and added that previous Wyoming cases had "recognized that certain conduct in the employment context may rise to the level of outrageousness necessary to provide a basis for recovery for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress." n193 Thus, "our first task is to determine whether the pattern of behavior alleged, when it occurs in the workplace, satisfies the outrageousness element of the tort." n194 The court is implicitly stating that the workplace is different from other venues and that conduct that might not be "outrageous" elsewhere may become so when committed in the workplace:
We are in accord with numerous jurisdictions which have determined that inappropriate sexual conduct in the workplace can, upon sufficient evidence, give rise to a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. In reaching this decision, we find persuasive this pronouncement from the Utah Supreme Court: "It is worth stating forcefully that any other conclusion would amount to an intolerable refusal to recognize that our society has ceased seeing sexual harassment in the workplace as a playful inevitability that should be taken in good spirits and has awakened to the fact that sexual harassment has a corrosive effect on those who engage in it as well as those who are subjected to it and that such harassment has far more to do with the abusive exercise of one person's power over another than it does with sex." n195
The Kanzler court noted that despite general agreement that workplace sexual harassment might constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress, different decisions "reveal widely varying and inconsistent attitudes regarding the severity of the sexual misconduct required for a showing of outrageousness . . . this disparity is due in large part to the vague, subjective and value-laden concept of 'outrageousness.'" n196 Nonetheless, the Kanzler court found "several recurring factors that courts have used to assist in the determination of whether particular conduct in the workplace is sufficiently outrageous to survive a preliminary motion." n197 These factors included: (1) "abuse of power," defined as "an abuse by the actor of a position, or a relation with the other, which gives him actual or apparent authority over the other, or power to affect his interests"; n198 (2) "repeated incidents/pattern of harassment"; (3) "unwelcome touching/offensive, non-negligible physical conduct"; and (4) "retaliation for refusing or reporting sexually-motivated advances." n199
Looking at these factors, the Kanzler court had little difficulty concluding that Renner's alleged acts might indeed be considered tortiously "outrageous": "Kanzler has alleged conditions and circumstances which are beyond mere insults, indignities, and petty oppression and which, if proved, could be construed as outrageous." n200
These four cases are not atypical; other cases, too, demonstrate the willingness of some courts to permit plaintiffs to assert common-law causes of action for workplace sexual harassment. n201 Of course, not all courts have been so flexible -- many cases reaching contrary holdings could also be cited, and in many jurisdictions, this is still a contested issue. Again, tort law offers no panacea. Nonetheless, on a pragmatic level, tort law may offer a promising avenue for some plaintiffs. More importantly, on the level of principle, tort law offers a way to fundamentally reconceptualize one's understanding of workplace harassment. The flexibility of the courts in Stockett, Godfrey, Priest, and Kanzler suggests a way to move beyond "classic" cases of male-female sexual harassment and toward a broader understanding of the ways in which all abusive treatment in the workplace inflicts dignitary harms on the workers who are victimized.
E. TORT REMEDIES FOR WORKPLACE HARASSMENT, BROADLY CONCEIVED: THE WORKPLACE AS AN INHERENTLY AGGRAVATING FACTOR IN DIGNITARY HARMS
The tort conception of dignitary harm does not privilege sexual harms over nonsexual harms. This suggests the possibility of using tort law as a means of addressing workplace abusiveness of the sort described in the hypothetical in Part III.B.2 -- abusiveness that would not give rise to a cause of action under Title VII as it does not involve discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. Such abusiveness may be every bit as common -- and as painful to the victim -- as discriminatory harassment, and tort law provides a promising way for plaintiffs to obtain relief. Indeed, tort concepts suggest that the workplace could and should be deemed an inherently aggravating factor when courts assess plaintiff claims of dignitary harm.
As the Kanzler court pointed out, in many of the sexual harassment cases involving claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress, courts have looked to the issue of abuse of power to determine whether a defendant's conduct is truly "outrageous," as required by the Restatement. Most courts adopting this approach have construed "abuse of power" quite broadly. The Kanzler court, for instance, regarded abuse of power as "an abuse by the actor of a position, or a relation with the other, which gives him actual or apparent authority over the other, or power to affect his interests" and approvingly quoted the Utah Supreme Court, which stated in Rutherford v. AT&T n202 that, in general, workplace sexual harassment "has far more to do with the abusive exercise of one person's power over another than it does with sex." n203 Similarly, in Godfrey, the Court affirmed Prosser and Keeton's assertion that "the extreme and outrageous nature of the conduct may arise not so much from what is done as from the abuse by the defendant of some relation or position which gives the defendant actual or apparent power to damage the plaintiff's interests." n204
This flexible notion of "abuse of power" suggests that dignitary harms inflicted in the workplace could be seen as inherently aggravated by the very fact that they occur in the workplace, n205 a setting in which employees are clearly in a dependent relationship both vis-a-vis their supervisors (most obviously) and vis-a-vis their coworkers (less obviously, but equally powerfully).
Take, first, the easier proposition that harassment by a supervisor will always constitute an abuse of power. This argument is straightforward: supervisors, by definition, have more power than those they supervise; they can often hire and fire; they may be in a position to make reports on an employee that will affect her advancement; they may be able to alter the terms or conditions of an employee's work (by assigning more, less, or different work, for instance); and they will generally have greater access to people still higher in the employment hierarchy. If a supervisor behaves inappropriately or abusively to a subordinate -- even if the offending behavior is fairly minor -- the subordinate is placed in a difficult or impossible position: failure to quietly tolerate the supervisor's abusive behavior may mean anything from having to endure a workplace that is increasingly unpleasant (harder tasks, longer hours, or reduced possibility of advancement) to the actual loss of the subordinate's job. The subordinate is in a lose-lose situation if harassed by a supervisor: she can either accept the harassing behavior, which renders the workplace unpleasant (at the least), or she can protest and risk making the workplace even more unpleasant, if she does not lose her job.
While it is true that coworkers, in general, do not have the power to promote or fire one another, coworker harassment may still be distressing and even discriminatory. A worker who relies on his job for economic survival is effectively a captive audience for a harassing coworker. n206 Coworkers have significant ability to alter the "terms or conditions" of employment by behaving in ways that render the workplace intolerable. Using the Kanzler or the Prosser and Keeton definition, abuse of power may also exist where one person's relation with another gives him the actual or apparent ability to affect or damage the other person's interests. By harassing a coworker in a way that renders the workplace intolerable for the victim, coworkers can clearly damage the victim's interests.
In Priest, the court also found that "defendant Rotary abused his position in relationship to Priest. . . ." n207 In assessing Priest's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, the court also found that Priest was "peculiarly susceptible to emotional distress. . . ." n208 The court held this to be so both because of an "abdominal condition" that troubled Priest and, significantly, "by reason of her economic condition": n209 her job was "the sole source of financial support for her minor son" and she had "bought a car and furniture and rented an apartment in reliance on the fact of being employed at Fireside." n210
This, the court noted, rendered Rotary's conduct toward Priest particularly outrageous because of his "knowledge that plaintiff Priest was peculiarly susceptible to emotional distress by reason of her abdominal condition and by reason of her economic condition." n211 To the Priest court, the fact that the defendant's abusive behavior occurred in the workplace is seen as an aggravating condition; realistically, Priest couldn't simply quit her job when Rotary began to harass her because she needed that job. Rotary knew this and took advantage of her dependence.
Implicit in the Priest court's analysis is a deep critique of the employment-at-will paradigm: n212 the court suggests that an employment relationship creates a special duty of care for employers, given the financial dependence of their employees. Employer-defendants should be presumed to realize that employees are economically dependent on them and that if employees are faced with an abusive workplace, their emotional distress will inevitably be extreme. n213
This reasoning bears a striking resemblance to the reasoning in earlier lines of tort cases, which held common carriers, innkeepers, and public utilities to a stricter standard in assessing intentional infliction of emotional distress. Further, this reasoning suggests that a fundamental shift in thinking about dignitary harms inflicted in the workplace is due.
The elements of power, choice, and dependence necessarily affect views of dignitary harms. As many courts have noted, not everything that is hurtful or annoying gives rise to a cause of action; absent a special duty of care, every person has to put up with a certain amount of indignity. n214 In particular, with regard to the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, "mere insult, indignity, or annoyance" is not enough to give rise to tort liability, absent "other circumstances of aggravation." n215 Nonetheless, since the Nineteenth Century, many courts have been willing to hold common carriers and their agents to a higher standard of behavior. n216 The reasoning behind these cases is clear: when using trains, planes, or buses, and the like, travelers are, in effect, captives: the conditions of modern life make it virtually impossible for us to "opt out" of using common carriers. In order to participate fully and equally in social, political, or economic life, people must use common carriers, creating deep dependence. This dependence renders people particularly vulnerable to any dignitary harms inflicted by common carriers. For public policy reasons, many courts have held that this dependence gives rise to the higher standard of care expected of common carriers and their agents: the burden to common carriers of being held to a somewhat higher behavior standard is, on balance, less than the harm inflicted on ordinary citizens subjected to abusive behavior by common carriers.
Common carriers are held to a higher standard of care in most areas of tort law, most clearly in the jurisprudence of intentional infliction of emotional distress. In more recent years, some courts have extended this reasoning to cover inns and public utilities, as well as common carriers, for the same reasons. n217
In the many cases assessing whether or not common carriers and the like should be held to a higher standard of care, courts have enunciated a three-part test: First, is the provided service something that is essential for ordinary people to realize their full potential as citizens and persons? Second, how burdensome would it be for an ordinary person to find an alternative source of the provided service? Third, which would be more burdensome: holding the provider to a higher standard of care or expecting ordinary people to bear the costs of the provider's tortious behavior?
Applying this three-part test to the context of the workplace, it makes sense to conclude that the employment context should be considered an inherently aggravating factor when courts assess whether the infliction of dignitary harm rises to the level of seriousness necessary for liability. n218
(1) Is the provided service something that is essential for ordinary people to reach their full potential as citizens and persons?
This question is easily answered in the affirmative. The days when many Americans could grow and produce most of what they needed are long past. For most, employment is necessary for simple survival. Some people do inherit wealth, but such examples are relatively rare. Further, in a nation with an increasingly tattered social safety net, no one can assume that the state will care for them if they do not work. n219 As a result, over the course of the past century, employment has become increasingly essential. Today, a higher percentage of Americans than ever before must participate in the workforce to survive, and a smaller percentage of Americans than ever before is employed on farms or in small businesses.
Some statistics paint a striking picture: in 1900, only fifty percent of Americans of working age participated in the labor force, and thirty-eight percent of those people were employed on farms. In 1940, the percentage of Americans working had increased only to fifty-two percent, but only seventeen percent of those people worked on farms. In 1990, sixty-five percent of working age Americans were employed -- and fewer than two percent worked on farms. In 1997, the percentage of Americans participating in the labor force had risen to seventy-two percent. n220
Furthermore, the people who comprise the workforce have changed. In 1900, fewer than twenty percent of working-age women were employed. In 1967, fifty-one percent of women were employed; in 1997, sixty percent of working-age women were employed and a whopping seventy-two percent of mothers of minor children worked. n221
For most Americans, then, work is necessary for economic survival, and it is no accident that Americans are working longer hours and more weeks of the year than ever before; the real wage has fallen in the last decade and is lagging further and further behind the consumer price index. n222 The same things cost more, and with falling real wages, this means that work -- and plenty of it -- is increasingly necessary for most Americans. n223
Moreover, work has become an increasingly central part of how social identities are constructed. n224 At one time, religion, class, and birthplace were the primary factors affecting identity. But increasingly, work is a primary identifier. As Vicki Schultz notes, "In advanced industrial societies, wage work is a primary source of . . . psychological well-being: [a] job provides both the means to meet life's concrete needs and a position that confers a sense of place in the world. As scholars have begun to recognize, work not only bestows a livelihood and sense of community, but also provides the basis for full citizenship, and even for personal identity. Like it or not, we are what we do." n225
The notion that work is critical in forming social identities and in constituting people as citizens can be seen with particular clarity in the context of the debate about America's welfare system. n226 To be without a job, in the current American social climate, is to be severely stigmatized, thought of as lazy, dependent, entitled, child-like. n227 Many commentators -- especially conservative and neoliberal commentators like Mickey Kaus, n228 David Ellwood, n229 and Lawrence Mead n230 -- have insisted that "work for the employable is the clearest social obligation" n231 and that "employment is essential to being a functioning citizen." n232 In this vision, the rights that inhere in all citizens are -- quite literally -- contingent upon a person's status as a member of the labor force. n233
Work, then, is critical both for simple survival and for the formation of social and civic identity. Even more than in the case of common carriers and public accommodations, then, Americans rely on employment to secure the full benefits of citizenship and social and economic life.
(2) How burdensome would it be for an ordinary person to find an alternative source of the provided service?
In order to decide that employers should be held to a higher standard of care vis-a-vis their workers, it must be shown that for most workers, finding alternative sources of income is extremely burdensome. n234 In 1995, finding a job took the average American job-searcher nearly three months, and, according to the Census Bureau, workers who lost their jobs generally were unable to find new jobs that paid as well as their old jobs: on average, workers who had previously lost their jobs found themselves with wages that were more than twenty percent lower in their new jobs. n235 Like passengers on a bus or people in their homes, workers are essentially a captive audience in their jobs: leaving is technically possible, but not without significant costs. n236 Moreover, to the extent that employers and their agents are not held to a higher standard of care, a worker may leave one abusive place of employment in which he has no legal recourse, only to find other equally abusive workplaces. Where this happens, the worker's "choice" of workplaces is illusive. n237
(3) Which would be more burdensome: holding the provider to a higher standard of care or expecting ordinary people to bear the costs of the provider's tortious behavior?
Employers are already expected to take reasonable steps to ensure that workplaces will be physically safe for their employees, providing workers with adequate protection from toxic chemicals, dangerous machinery, smoking coworkers, and so on. Employers are also expected to take reasonable steps to protect their employees from being discriminated against on the job, inform them of antidiscrimination laws and policies, and act promptly to remedy any discrimination that occurs. Requiring employers to bear the burden of ensuring a nonabusive workplace, one in which all workers (regardless of sex) would be assured a workplace free of intentionally inflicted dignitary harms, is a logical extension of this premise.
In practice, there is no reason for such a requirement to be particularly onerous to employers. n238 Employers would be required to create "antiabusiveness" policies: inform all employees that they are expected to treat others with courtesy and respect and refrain from threatening, intimidating, humiliating, and harassing subordinates or coworkers. n239 This concept is not particularly hard to articulate; a few well-chosen examples would generally suffice to establish the kinds of behavior that are unacceptable in the context of the workplace. n240 If an employee complained that a supervisor or coworker was behaving abusively, the employer would have a duty to investigate and remedy the abuse (if the abuse was found to be serious) by disciplining or transferring the abusive person. If an employee sued the tortfeasor and the employer, juries would be instructed to take into account the employer's policy about abusive behavior, and the response of the employer to allegations of abuse, in assessing employer liability. n241 In this context, using tort law to address the problem of workplace harassment and abuse offers a promising practical solution.
IV. POTENTIAL OBJECTIONS TO THE TORT APPROACH
So far, this article has outlined the many ways in which Title VII jurisprudence provides an inadequate account of the wrongs of workplace sexual harassment and argues for a more pluralistic conception of workplace harassment: one that acknowledges that all people can suffer from severe dignitary harms inflicted in the workplace, regardless of their gender and regardless of whether they were subjected to dignitary harms that were sexual in nature. Common-law torts, applied creatively, might offer such a way to address most kinds of workplace harassment, and, because of the changed social meaning of work, the employment context should be considered an aggravating factor when courts assess workplace dignitary harms.
The primary objections to this approach are all, in one way or another, pragmatic objections. They will be discussed here only briefly, because none of the objections reaches this article's fundamental point, which is that the common law offers us a way to distinguish between the dignitary nature of the harm of workplace harassment and the discriminatory context in which much harassment occurs. This distinction is important, because it permits the articulation of a philosophical point that is brought out too rarely, namely that the workplace harassment of women is wrong not for some essentialist reason having to do with "women" qua women, but because the workplace harassment of any human being, male or female, is wrong. Furthermore, tort jurisprudence provides a way to articulate the intuition that harms in the workplace should be taken more seriously than harms in many other places.
A. THE "GROUP HARM" OBJECTION
Catharine MacKinnon specifically rejected the notion of using the common law to remedy workplace sexual harassment of women. As discussed in Part III.C of this article, she felt that tort law, with its emphasis on individual rights and harms, was inherently ill-suited to addressing a problem that was faced by women because they were women and that affected the ability of all women to advance in the workplace. Following MacKinnon, many other feminist legal writers have likewise insisted that sexual harassment needs to be understood as a group harm, not an individual harm, n242 and that common-law remedies are therefore inappropriate. Thus, Kathryn Abrams argues:
Yes, harassment is a dignitary injury, but if we fail to appreciate that this dignitary injury is a function of, and connected to, other injuries within an unequal and hierarchical relationship, we miss much of what is morally and politically significant about the wrong. . . . Failing to highlight the fact that this humiliation [sexual harassment] arises from a context of systematic gender inequality individualizes the wrong and diminishes the imperative for responding to it. . . . This is not simply an abstract point but an issue with ramifications for public education, legal enforcement, and private efforts at prevention. n243
The feminist insistence that sexual harassment must be understood as a systematic barrier to women's equal access to economic, social, and political power is an understandable stance. Indeed, in the early days of the women's movement, the feminist emphasis on sexual harassment as a "group harm" may well have played an important role in raising public awareness and sparking debate and reform. Today, however, an inability to transcend the distinction between "group" and "individual" harms does a disservice to understanding sexual harassment. The distinction has become increasingly facile: it fosters an essentialist understanding of workplace relations between the sexes and fails to convey many of the complex truths about the ways in which workplace harassment harms all workers.
Furthermore, on a purely pragmatic level, the "group harm" objection to pursuing tort-based remedies has little force for two reasons. First, Title VII claims can be raised in conjunction with tort causes of action; the victims can have it both ways. Part III argued for the need to disaggregate the nature of the harm of sexual harassment from the context in which the harm occurs. Tort causes of action, generally speaking, address the dignitary nature of the harm of sexual harassment of individual working women. Title VII actions, in contrast, address the discriminatory context in which harassment of working women occurs. If a plaintiff feels that the harassment she suffered was discriminatory, she can raise a Title VII claim and assert causes of action in tort as well -- something that many plaintiffs do already. n244
Second, even within the "individualistic" confines of tort law, women should be able to bring up arguments about the context of discrimination against women. Indeed, as the cases reviewed in Part III.D demonstrate, some courts have been quite willing to see the discriminatory context in which many women work as an exacerbating factor when assessing the severity of workplace harassment of women. The discriminatory context in which harassment of women occurs is clearly relevant to the "outrageousness" of the harm, to the culpability of the defendant, and to the employer's responsibility for seeking to prevent and remedy such abusive behavior.
B. THE "RIGID COURTS" OBJECTION
MacKinnon and other feminist writers make another objection to seeking tort remedies for workplace harassment. They note that many courts have been inflexible in applying tort doctrine to situations of workplace sexual harassment. For all the cases in which judges have been willing to view workplace harassment as "outrageous," there are many other cases in which courts have insisted that repeated sexual come-ons, insults, offensive touchings, and the like, however annoying or offensive, do not rise to the level of outrageousness required for recovery. n245 Although feminist thinkers have given less attention to this issue, n246 it might also be objected that if courts have been unwilling to be flexible when it comes to granting recovery for sexual harassment of women, a problem that has received enormous amounts of attention, they will be even more rigid when it comes to assessing whether nonsexual forms of dignitary harms in the workplace should be actionable. n247
This objection also lacks force, because it ignores the doctrinal benefits of adopting tort doctrine in this context. The preferred approach is based on principle, rather than pragmatics. On the level of principle, the potential reluctance of courts to flexibly apply tort concepts when faced with allegations of workplace harassment does not alter the fundamental point about the ways in which common-law tort concepts permit us to reconceptualize workplace harassment.
Even on the level of pragmatics, however, the potential rigidity of the courts does not defeat the benefits of a tort-based approach. The genius of the common law is that it changes over time, adapting to reflect changing technologies, structures, and social mores. In the past two decades, more and more courts, faced with tort-based claims, have been willing to take a flexible and contextualized view of the sexual harassment of women in the workplace. Indeed, courts have become more and more willing, in general, to permit recovery for nonphysical, dignitary harms of all kinds.
The rigidity of some courts is no reason at all to abandon the effort to make workplace dignitary harms actionable. If some courts are rigid, the message to those who wish to see a workplace right to be free of intentionally inflicted dignitary harms is simple: they need to try harder. Scholarly articles must lay out the reasons why courts should be sympathetic to such approaches and show that such an approach is consistent with the history and evolution of common law and is required by the changing nature and meaning of the workplace in ordinary life. Test cases must be litigated in a concerted fashion, rather than simply leaving to chance whether or not a particular plaintiff will choose to make these arguments. The common law is inherently conservative, but it does change over time; it has changed before, and it will change again. n248
C. THE "LIABILITY AND PREEMPTION" OBJECTION
Some may argue that there are additional practical barriers in the way of pursuing tort-based remedies for abusive workplace behavior, pointing specifically to two issues. First, in common law, employers are generally not responsible for the intentional torts of their agents on the grounds that employers can hardly predict or prevent intentional wrongdoing. Second, tort remedies for workplace harassment may face preemption problems under state workers' compensation statutes.
These objections can be answered in the same fashion as the last objection. On the level of principle, this objection is neither here nor the