Overview

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act may have outlawed sex discrimination, but it did not address the sexual harassment of women in the workplace - behavior that courts did not deem illegal until well into the era of the modern civil rights and women's movements. Mechelle Vinson's lawsuit against her employer, Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986), changed all of that. Adopting the legal theory pioneered by feminist Catharine MacKinnon that sexual harassment was indeed discriminatory, the Supreme Court's opinion, authored by one of the most conservative justices, brought the problem of sexual harassment into the spotlight and placed power relations between men and women at work squarely on the public agenda. Plaintiff Vinson claimed that she had submitted to the unwanted sexual advances of her supervisor in order to hold onto her job. Although her supervisor denied her charges and the bank he worked for disavowed any knowledge of misbehavior, her suit finally reached the Supreme Court after six years of litigation, where a unanimous Court determined that the creation of a """"hostile work environment"""" through sexual harassment was a form of sex discrimination.

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Cochran is an exceptional raconteur and his book is comprehensive, thorough, and wonderfully forward-looking.

Cochran is an exceptional raconteur and his book is comprehensive, thorough, and wonderfully forward-looking. �This is much more than a story of a single case. It provides a panoramic overview of the role of work in women�s lives, a succinct history of employment discrimination law, and a penetrating analysis of the evolution of our views of sexual harassment in the workplace.�--Karen O�Connor, author of Women, Politics, and American Society �After Vinson, nothing was the same. Cochran does a masterful job of setting the case in its historical context and exploring its legal impact.�--Judith A. Baer, author of Our Lives before the Law: Constructing a Feminist Jurisprudence �Cochran is an exceptional raconteur and his book is comprehensive, thorough, and wonderfully forward-looking.�--Nancy Levit, author of The Gender Line: Men, Women, and the Law -This is much more than a story of a single case. It provides a panoramic overview of the role of work in women's lives, a succinct history of employment discrimination law, and a penetrating analysis of the evolution of our views of sexual harassment in the workplace.---Karen O'Connor, author of Women, Politics, and American Society -After Vinson, nothing was the same. Cochran does a masterful job of setting the case in its historical context and exploring its legal impact.---Judith A. Baer, author of Our Lives before the Law: Constructing a Feminist Jurisprudence -Cochran is an exceptional raconteur and his book is comprehensive, thorough, and wonderfully forward-looking.---Nancy Levit, author of The Gender Line: Men, Women, and the Law This is much more than a story of a single case. It provides a panoramic overview of the role of work in women's lives, a succinct history of employment discrimination law, and a penetrating analysis of the evolution of our views of sexual harassment in the workplace. --Karen O'Connor, author of Women, Politics, and American Society After Vinson, nothing was the same. Cochran does a masterful job of setting the case in its historical context and exploring its legal impact. --Judith A. Baer, author of Our Lives before the Law: Constructing a Feminist Jurisprudence Cochran is an exceptional raconteur and his book is comprehensive, thorough, and wonderfully forward-looking. --Nancy Levit, author of The Gender Line: Men, Women, and the Law

-This is much more than a story of a single case. It provides a panoramic overview of the role of work in women's lives, a succinct history of employment discrimination law, and a penetrating analysis of the evolution of our views of sexual harassment in the workplace.---Karen O'Connor, author of Women, Politics, and American Society -After Vinson, nothing was the same. Cochran does a masterful job of setting the case in its historical context and exploring its legal impact.---Judith A. Baer, author of Our Lives before the Law: Constructing a Feminist Jurisprudence -Cochran is an exceptional raconteur and his book is comprehensive, thorough, and wonderfully forward-looking.---Nancy Levit, author of The Gender Line: Men, Women, and the Law

Author Information

Augustus B. Cochran III is professor of political science at Agnes Scott College and is associated with the Atlanta law firm of Stanford Fagan. He is the author of Democracy Heading South: National Politics in the Shadow of Dixie, published recently by Kansas.

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