18. Appeal to a Higher Court
Broke, Barry got help from the Women's Legal Defense Fund and attorney Ronald Schechter helped with the brief and the argument. The case went before a three-judge panel that included Robinson. Robinson became ill, and the case took three years to decide. Eventually Vinson heard from a journalist that she had won.
During the pendency of Vinson's appeal, the EEOC had promulgated new sexual harassment guidelines that included a hostile environment within the definition. They were applied by the D.C. Circuit in a case against the D.C. Department of Corrections and that case thus was available to Robinson in Vinson. The appellate court sent the case back down for evidence about hostile environment harassment and explicitly stated that a victim's capitulation to sexual advances did not foreclose redress.
Judge Robert Bork, who would later be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court but not confirmed, dissented when the bank unsuccessfully moved for an en banc hearing. He was joined by Judge Antonin Scalia and Judge Kenneth Starr. The U.S. Supreme Court took the case.
No comments:
Post a Comment