Business Law

Employment Law

University Of Phoenix

BUS/415 Business Law

Group PA08BAM01

James W. Potts

May 5, 2008

Employment Law

Under the Common Law, equal employment opportunity is guaranteed to all employees and job applicants. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency designed to enforce most federal antidiscrimination laws. The EEOC is empowered to conduct investigations, interpret the statutes, encourage conciliation between employers and employees, and bring suit to enforce the law.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was enacted to eliminate job discrimination based on five protected classes. The classes are race, color, national origin, sex and religion.

Under Title VII, sexual harassment is prohibited in the work environment. Forms of conduct are prohibited include lewd remarks, touching, intimidation, posting of indecent materials, and other physical conduct of a sexual nature, all of which violates Title VII.

Issue of Case

In the case of Illinois County Sheriff’s Department accused of sexual harassment and discrimination agrees to pay $440,000 in compensation.

In Washington D.C., the Justice Department announced, an Illinois County Sheriff’s Department allegedly allowed female inmates to be sexually harassed and refused to hire female patrol officers, agreed on Friday, December 8, 1995, to stop the harassment and pay more then $440,000 in damages to the victims of the discrimination.

Facts in Case

The allegations claimed that the female correction officers at the Mc Henry County Correctional Center in Woodstock were subjected to explicit and vulgar language, crude drawings and unwelcoming physical conduct of physical nature. It claimed that these acts created a sexually hostile work environment. (site). The suit also alleged that female applicants for entry-level patrol officer positions were denied jobs because of their sex and that persons who complained about the sexual harassment and...