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Selected academic
  research on sexual 
  harassment and teenagers  

	Academic Studies
	Case Law

Academic Studies

Jennifer Drobac,  a law professor at Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis, argues that employment law does not adequately protect teenagers. She explains that employment case law expects harassment victims to recognize harassment and to know about and how use the employers’ complaint and redress mechanisms. However, teenagers are often not mature enough to recognize harassment and address it appropriately. Additionally, employment law already treats minors as “lacking capacity” in many areas and this legal reasoning should be extended to increasing employers’ liability when teens are sexually harassed.

Selected works:

“I can’t to I Kant: The sexual harassment of working adolescents, competing theories, and ethical dilemmas,” 70 Albany L. Rev.675 (2007).

“‘Developing capacity’: adolescent ‘consent’ at the workplace, at law, and in the sciences of the mind,“ 10 U.C. DAVIS J. JUVENILE L. & POL’Y 1 (2006).

“Sex and the workplace: ‘Consenting’ adolescents and a conflict of laws,” 79 WASH. L. REV. 471 (2004).

Excerpt: “[S]exual harassment may be a particular problem in the restaurant industry because restaurants often hire young, inexperienced workers. High employee turnover contributes to the problem, presumably because of monitoring difficulties and the need to train new employees continually…
[R]estaurants often try to create an ‘entertainment atmosphere’ that can cloud the rules for appropriate conduct in the workplace.”

Ben L. Erdreich, Beth S. Slavet and Antonio C. Amador, “Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: Trends, Progress, Continuing Challenges,” U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1995).

This survey, sent to 13,200 federal employees (8,000 responded), found that 44 percent of women and 19 percent of men said they had experienced some form of unwanted sexual attention in the previous two years. It also found that younger employees are significantly more likely to be harassed.

Susan Fineran is an associate professor at the University of Southern Maine School of Social Work and Women and Gender Studies.
Selected works:

With James E. Gruber, “Sexual harassment and teens at work,” Child Abuse & Neglect (forthcoming).

"Adolescents at work: Gender issues and sexual harassment,” Violence Against Women, (8), 953-967 (2002).

Legal scholar and feminist Catharine MacKinnon proposed the legal concept of sexual harassment in her groundbreaking 1979 book, "Sexual Harassment of Working Women." In 1980 the EEOC wrote this formulation into their regulations. 

Heather McLaughlin , Christopher Uggen and Amy Blackstone, “Social class and workplace harassment during the transition to adulthood,” in J.T. Mortimer (Ed.), Social class and transitions to adulthood. New directions for child and adolescent development, 119, 85-98.

Abstract: Young disadvantaged workers are especially vulnerable to harassment due to their age and social class position. As young people enter the workforce, their experiences of, and reactions to, harassment may vary dramatically from those of older adult workers. Three case studies introduce theory and research on the relationship between social class and harassment of young workers. We suggest two mechanisms through which class may structure harassment experiences: (1) extremely vulnerable youth are directly targeted based on their social class origins, and (2) the type and condition of youth employment, which is structured by class background, indirectly affect experiences of harassment.

Ganga Vijayasiri, “Reporting Sexual Harassment: The Importance of Organizational Culture and Trust” Gender Issues 25:1, 43-61 (2008).

Article discusses the many reasons why victims of unwanted sexual behavior are reluctant to use the internal grievance process to address these discriminatory behaviors.

Case Law

United States Supreme Court cases:

• In 1986, The Supreme Court declared sexual harassment to be sex discrimination, in Meritor v. Vinson. 

• In 1997, in Oncale v. Sundowner, Justice Scalia authored a unanimous decision saying that it is illegal sex discrimination when men sexually harass other men.

• In 1998, The Supreme Court established the Farragher/Ellerth standard, which says that employers—so long as they haven’t taken an “adverse employment action” against the victim—are not liable for sexual harassment if:

• The employer has programs in place that try to prevent sexual harassment and respond appropriately when it happens and
• When sexual harassment does happen, the victim fails to use the employer’s mechanisms to complain or to get “redress.”

The Farragher/Ellerth standard was derived from two cases, Farragher v. City of Boca Raton and Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth. 

Key 7th Circuit decisions pertaining specifically to the sexual harassment of teenagers:

“Jane Doe” v. Oberweis Dairy

In his 2006 opinion, Circuit Judge Richard Posner in 2006 essentially said that a Jane Doe’s “consent” to sex  is no defense if she’s under the legal age of consent in a given state (see page 12 of his opinion and the following passage):

Because her consent to have sex with Nayman was, as a matter of law, ineffectual, this is a case of a worker subjected to nonconsensual sex by a supervisor…during, as well as arising from, the employment relation…

An employer of teens is not in loco parentis, but he acts at his peril if he fails to warn their parents when he knows or should know that their children are at substantial risk of statutory rape by an older, male supervisor in circumstances constituting workplace harassment.

EEOC v. V&J Foods

In his 2007 opinion, Circuit Judge Richard Posner cites his earlier ruling, saying:

An employer is not required to tailor its complaint procedures to the competence of each individual employee. But it is part of V&J’s business plan to employ teenagers, part-time workers often working for the first time. Knowing that it has many teenage employees, the company was obligated to suit its procedures to the understanding of the average teenager. (Cf. Doe v. Oberweis Dairy) Here as elsewhere in the law the known vulnerability of a protected class has legal significance.

© Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. All rights reserved.