This case is a few months old, a friend of mine brought it to my attention recently. It concerns a husband and wife who worked for the state of Indiana. They filed a joint suit against their supervisor for sexual harassment under Title VII of the federal code. The full decision is here.
The harassment itself was uncontested, but the court upheld a previous decision against the couple. In an odd twist, the court essentially ruled that since the supervisor had accosted both of them, there was no discrimination based on sex and therefore no case under Title VII. However the court did specify that the couple should have a tort in the State of Indiana under that state’s harassment laws.
So remember, all you bosses, if you are going to be a lascivious a-hole, treat the boys and girls equally.
Talk about being pedantic! How convenient for the court to take such a narrow definition of the word “sex”. I didn’t know that Indiana was a red-neck state.
In my part of the world, the term “sexual harassment” is clearly defined in law as referring to sexual suggestions, allusions, advances, molestation etc. Harassment and discrimination on the basis of gender is outlawed under different laws relating to Equal Opportunity.
How much simpler can it be?
Huh. I had thought there was a distinct difference between sexual discrimination, in which one gender is treated differently than the other, and sexual harassment, in which a person is subjected to unwanted sexual advances or an offensive environment. Y’know, what Dvous said.
Guess not in Indiana? Bizarre. I had heard about that case, but not the outcome.
I’d rather see a lawyer comment on this, but I don’t know who our current crop of juris doctors consists of these days, since I post over here rather sporadically now.
But it sounds like the couple was poorly represented - their lawyer brought action under the sexual harassment provisions of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which specifically pertains to discrimination. Which there wasn’t any of, as the court pointed out.
As The Stranger notes in his OP, Title VII isn’t the only sexual harassment law that the couple could have sought relief under.
IIRC, sexual harassment law as a subset of anti-discrimination law represents a certain step in the evolution of our understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace. I remember a time when the law recognized no such offense; next it was seen as something that, specifically, male did to female employees, and was accordingly regarded as a type of sexual discrimination. Hence the harassment law under Title VII. Finally, earlier cases similar to the case under discussion here made it clear to pretty much everyone that sexual harassment was not necessarily about discrimination, but rather about a hostile work environment. Laws were then passed in most jurisdictions defining sexual harassment in that manner. But they didn’t get rid of the old law, and people still file for relief under its provisions. In this case, that was the wrong statute to file under.
Now, in a saner world, what would happen is that the court would say, “oh, you really meant to request relief under this law,” and they’d just take it as read that you’d meant to file under the applicable statute, rather than the one that didn’t apply. But that would put too many lawyers out of business, I suppose.
That should have been, “male employers”.
What, me preview? 
Yeah, what RTF said. These folks simply filed their action against the wrong law. Title VII simply says that men and women must be treated equally in the workplace. As far as Title VII goes, treating people equally bad is OK.
As the court said in its ruling (you did read the ruling didn’t you, DVous?) it is up to Congress to broaden the intent of the law, not the judiciary.
It sounds to me like the complaintants and/or their lawyer thought that they could get more compensation from the Federal courts and tried to stretch Title VII to fit. The court simply said “You can’t do that, go file using State harrassment laws instead”.