Opinion ID: 848804
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Sexual Harassment Includes Gender-Based Discrimination

Text: Though unnecessary to clarify the availability of gender-based hostile-work-environment claims for the reasons stated above, it is worth noting that the plain text of subsection 2103(i) alone permits gender-based claims. When verbal or physical conduct or communication of a sexual nature is made a condition of or substantially interferes with, inter alia, employment, the conduct is proscribed. Id. This prohibition was enacted not because all things sexual are inherently discriminatory when targeted at an individual on the basis of her sex, but because sexual conduct that exploits our socially constructed concepts of gender perpetuates unlawful discrimination. Our courts have recognized that conduct of a sexual nature is not prohibited simply because it is of or pertaining to sex or the attribute of being either male or female or existing or predicated with regard to sex. Oxford English Dictionary (2d ed). Rather, unwelcome sexual conduct is prohibited because it risks exploiting gender-based inequality. [10] As noted in Radtke: [S]exual harassment is prohibited in the workplace because it violates civil liberty: Sexual harassment should be explicitly... prohibited because it is a demeaning, degrading, and coercive activity directed at persons on the basis of their sex, the continuation of which is often contingent on the harasser's economic control over the person being harassed. It should be outlawed because it violates basic human rights of privacy, freedom, sexual integrity and personal security.[ Radtke, supra at 380-381, 501 N.W.2d 155, quoting House Bill Analysis 4407 (August 15, 1980).] Just five years ago, in Koester, this Court acknowledged that harassing conduct need not be specifically motivated by sexual desire to support an inference of discrimination. It is sufficient that the conduct is motivated by general hostility to the presence of women in the workplace. Koester, supra at 15, 580 N.W.2d 835, quoting Oncale, supra at 80, 118 S.Ct. 998. To be sure, the phrase sexual harassment can be a misnomer. As several [federal] circuits have now recognized, the touchstone of an actionable... sexual harassment claim is not whether the offensive conduct includes sexual advances or ... other incidents with clearly sexual overtones. ... The critical inquiry is whether members of one sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex are not exposed. [ Koester, supra at 13, 580 N.W.2d 835 (citations omitted), quoting Mentch v. Eastern Savings Bank, FSB, 949 F.Supp. 1236, 1245-1246 (D.Md., 1997), quoting Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 25, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993).] Contrary to the majority's assertion, only by acknowledging the link between sexual conduct and gender-based inequality can the sexual-harassment provision, M.C.L. § 37.2103(i), be rationally applied.