Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.

Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 8, 1997 Decided March 4, 1998
Full case name	Joseph Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.
Citations	523 U.S. 75 (more) 118 S. Ct. 998; 140 L. Ed. 2d 201
Case history
Prior	83 F.3d 118 (5th Cir. 1996); rehearing en banc denied, 95 F.3d 56 (5th Cir. 1996); cert. granted, 520 U.S. 1263 (1997).
Holding
The protection against discrimination on the basis of sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is applicable to sexual harassment between members of the same sex.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Scalia, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Thomas
Laws applied
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, 523 U.S. 75 (1998), is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court. The case arose out of a suit for sex discrimination by a male oil-rig worker, who claimed that he was repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment by his male co-workers with the acquiescence of his employer. The Court held that the protection of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against workplace discrimination "because of... sex" applied to harassment in the workplace between members of the same sex.^[1]