In this case, the Supreme Court held that same-sex sexual harassment may constitute illegal sexual discrimination.
Joseph Oncale brought suit against his former employer, Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., and several male employees of Sundowner under Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964. Oncale alleged that while employed for Sundowner he was on several occasions subjected to sex-related humiliating actions, including a physical sexual assault and the threat of homosexual rape. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana rejected Oncale's claims, holding that as a matter of law a male had no cause of action for harassment by other males. The Fifth Circuit affirmed.
A unanimous Supreme Court reversed. Speaking through Justice Scalia, the Court stated that "same-sex harassment claims" can be covered by Title VII. Earlier decisions that illegal discrimination "includes sexual harassment must extend to sexual harassment of any kind that meets the statutory requirements." In reaching this conclusion, the Court stressed two significant limitations upon Title VII. First, while Title VII expressly prohibits "discrimination . . . because of sex," not all sexual harassment constitutes discrimination. "The critical issue . . . 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." Discrimination may be inferred from a variety of evidentiary routes, including evidence of motivation and direct comparative evidence of how the alleged harasser treated members of both sexes in a mixed-sex workplace.
Second, Title VII "does not reach genuine but innocuous differences in the ways men and women routinely interact with members of the same sex and of the opposite sex." While Title VII prohibits the creation of "an objectively hostile or abusive work environment," there is no statutory prohibition against ordinary "horseplay," "flirtation," "teasing," or "roughhousing." The question of whether a particular act could be considered "severely hostile or abusive" from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s perspective could vary from one situation to the next. Answering this key question requires examination of the social context, including the "surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships."
Justice Thomas wrote a brief concurring opinion to stress that in every sexual harassment case, Title VII requires proof of "discrimination ‘because of … sex.’"