Clinton's Crisis: Sex And The Law

Sexual harassment can mean firing victims who don't give in or merely telling a dirty joke. Clinton's fate rests on laws that tie even lawyers into knots

Bill Clinton should be happy that Paula Jones' sexual-harassment lawsuit against him won't be decided by the city attorney of little Murfreesboro, Tenn. It was there in 1995 that local artist Maxine Henderson exhibited some of her work in the city hall rotunda, including Gwen, a painting of a partly nude woman. A city employee saw the painting and was offended--so much so that she filed a sexual-harassment complaint against her employer. City attorney Tom Reed promptly whisked the painting away. Although a judge eventually ruled that Henderson had a First Amendment right to hang her art in the rotunda (it's...

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