EQUALITY WATCH : Harassment Help

When Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill last October that would have allowed victims of job harassment to collect cash damages, less than a week had passed since Prof. Anita Hill captured national attention with her account of sexual harassment. A lot of women--and men--who believed that the U.S. Senate did not take seriously Hill’s charges against now-Justice Clarence Thomas were already mad; Wilson’s veto made them even madder.

The Republican vice chairman of the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission resigned in protest against Wilson’s action, and one of the bill’s supporters called the veto another example that “sexual harassment in the workplace is not taken seriously.”

Wilson said he feared that the bill, by permitting awards of up to $200,000, would encourage the filing of frivolous harassment claims and that high damage awards would cause a hardship for small businesses. But the protest that his veto generated prompted him to take another look.

Last week, he and Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) agreed on a compromise that preserves the heart of her legislation from last year but imposes a sliding scale of awards to harassment victims based on the size of the company. This is a good starting point. Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-South San Francisco) has introduced two bills, requiring employers to provide education and training to prevent sexual harassment and extending the statute of limitations for filing claims. These, too, are needed changes.