PHIL PONCE: For a legal explanation of today’s same-sex sexual harassment ruling we turn to NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, senior writer with National Journal and contributing editor to Newsweek, and we look at the ruling’s impact on the workplace with Ellen Bravo, co-director of 9 to 5, the national association of working women which represents women and men in non-management positions, and Kathleen Neville, a business consultant and author of "Corporate Attraction: An Inside Account of Sexual Harassment on the Job." Welcome all. Stuart Taylor, first, a quick statement of the facts of the case that led to this decision.

STUART TAYLOR, National Journal: This is a lawsuit by a man named Joseph Oncal, who had been harassed on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on which only men worked. Two of his supervisors and a third man engaged in a succession of sexually harassing types of things with him, including humiliating him with a bar of soap when they were naked in the shower once, for example, threatening him with rape. He ultimately resigned, saying that he feared being raped, although none of this was apparently motivated by homosexual desire–it was just being nasty to him–and ultimately sued for sexual harassment, claiming a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title VII, sex discrimination provisions.

PHIL PONCE: And the lower court, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, held that?

STUART TAYLOR: They held flatly that because he was a man suing for sexually harassing conduct by other men he had no federal remedy. He could sue in state court for battery, or something like that, but they held broadly that same-sex sexual harassment doesn’t violate federal civil rights laws. And that was the issue the Supreme Court took the case to consider.

PHIL PONCE: And the Supreme Court held that.