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anatomy. 1: a branch of morphology that deals with the structure of organisms 2: a treatise on anatomic science or art 3: the art of separating the parts of an animal or plant in order to ascertain their position, relations, structure, and function 4: a body dissected or to be dissected 5: structural makeup esp. of an organism or any of its parts 6: a separating or dividing into parts for detailed examination.1 Public sector actions have been increasingly affected by civil rights laws. The primary purpose of this article is to show how one important act impinges on public personnel management. Since little has been written on how such laws are constructed, this article will deal with the anatomy of a basic civil rights law, and will show how Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is constructed in terms of definitions, rights, responsibilities, exceptions and defenses. Research methodology will involve the analysis of primary sources: (1) the ADA of July 26, 1990 itself, and (2) the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's "Equal Employment Opportunity with Individuals with Disabilities; Final Rule" of July 26, 1991. The introductory sections of the article will also provide a brief overview of several structural aspects of Title I, and a comparison of this law with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA).

One key issue which has surrounded the payment of unemployment compensation benefits has been whether states could deny payment of such benefits to individuals who were out of Work for religious reasons. This presented a classic clash between state denial and First Amendment religious protections. In all such confrontations from 1963 until 1990 the Supreme Court sided with the claimant, but reversed itself in that year in Oregon v. Smith. This reversal triggered off the introduction of two House Bills calling for concepts to be enacted into general law which would be congruent with the earlier Supreme Court compensation decisions.

In civil rights actions, employee-plaintiffs alleging discrimination must attempt to prove a prima facie case;1 and if accomplished the employer-defendant must attempt to rebut such cases with some type of defense. These defenses may be very narrow and specific in scope such as the seniority or merit system defenses explicitly provided for under the 1963 Equal Pay Act (EPA). On the other hand, broader "business" and or "job" defenses (and the wording and meaning varies from situation to situation) have been both devised by the courts as standards of behavior for employers, and stipulated for employers by legislation. This article will analyze four important of these employer defenses: (1) the legitimate business reason and its antecedents in EPA litigation; (2) the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ) "reasonably necessary" defense provided in both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967; (3) the business necessity and job related standards promulgated in Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 U.S. 424 (1971), as eventually codified by the Civil Rights Act of 1991; and (4) the job relatedness/business necessity/reasonable accommodation defense of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). All of the above defenses pose current challenges to employers except probably the BFOQ, so that their examination should be of value to all those involved in employee relations law.

Administrators have made decisions in seeking to cope with the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Subordinates have challenged many of these decisions on the basis that their constitutional rights have been compromised. Case law has shown that when risk of AIDS transmission is high, or where there is a danger to an AIDS victim, the courts will support the administrator's decisions. Conversely, when there is a very low risk of AIDS transmission or personal injury, such decisions (e.g., mandatory blood testing) will be struck down.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on July 26, 1990. This article reviews and summarizes the impact of the ADA on the public sector, and discusses two key concepts of the law, "reasonable accommodation" and "undue hardship." These two concepts impact all management functions, including personnel management, and are the most troublesome of the Act to interpret and apply.

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when (1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment, (2) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

More than a decade after the first officially reported case in the United States, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) now poses a major challenge for American organisations. Despite the plethora of coverage by the news media and an emerging literature in academic and practitioner journals, managers and business educators still lack clear and accurate information about the disease, the legal rights of its victims, and how organisations should deal with employees who have AIDS or who are infected with the HIV (AIDS causing) virus, but who remain asymptomatic.