Yahoo Justicernby Sarah J. McCarthyrnThe Supreme Court that has recently issued its antiharassmentrndecision sits in the middle of a city underrnsiege. Justices who have pronounced the nation’s employers liablernfor “permitting a hostile environment” to exist in thernworkplace cannot walk within two blocks of the SupremernCourt building without being confronted with the most hostilernof environments. Visitors to the nation’s capital plan theirrnmonument tours around the schedules of street hustlers, muggers,rnand murderers who own the streets after sunset, impellingrnMayor Sharon Pratt Kelly to request help from the NationalrnCuard. Instead of grappling with the mayhem outside,rnCongress and the nation’s criminal justice system have turnedrntheir attentions to something far more manageable—workplacernharassment and speech control.rn”This decision is only a blow to Yahoos,” said Burke Stinson,rnan AT&T spokesman. Mr. Stinson and other Fortune 500rnguys who have spent big bucks on shiny new sexual harassmentrnbrochures and seminars are not worried. With their fleet of expensivernin-house lawyers, they are confident of their ability tornnegotiate sticky situations. But the Yahoos, many of whom arernsmall business owners and their employees, are about to get itrnbig-time. These business owners, many of whom you might sayrnare works-in-progress, or ripe plums waiting to be picked, arernnow subject to fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars forrn”permitting a hostile environment” to exist in their companies.rnA Yahoo, says the American Heritage Dictionary, is “a crudernor brutish person, derived from a race representing humanity atrnlarge in Gulliver’s Travels.” The Yahoos I know are the hardworkingrnguys with rough edges who are running the auto bodyrnand pizza shops. Though they sometimes look like peoplernSarah j. McCarthy is a restaurateur and writer livingrnin Pittsburgh.rnArnfrom Deliverance, they create a sizable chunk of the new jobsrnin America. They have not had their attitudes adjusted and filteredrnthrough the paradigms of Yale, and while they do not yetrnknow it, their personalities have now been criminalized. Theyrnare considered by the politically correct and their lawyers to bernracist, sexist, homophobes. God help them if they have workedrnhard, have played by the rules as they understand them, andrnown a home and business. Yahoos have never heard of thern”Hostile Halls” study, a report on sexual harassment in schools.rnWhile Senator Kennedy busies himself investigating politicallyrncorrect minutia like the pig-tail pulling and depantsing thatrnis said to be going on in kindergartens throughout America,rnbusinesses are being demoralized and destroyed by armedrnrobbers who come through the back door and lawyers whorncome through the front.rnThe employees that the Yahoos hire are a wild and woollyrnbreed themselves. Dean, a chef and manager of a restaurantrnkitchen on auto-body row, used to laugh wildly as he chasedrnthe waitresses with a three-foot-long filet mignon hidden underrnhis apron. The restaurant owner who was now financiallyrnresponsible for Dean’s antics became nervous when he heardrntales of how Dean, working alone on the nightshift, hid underrntables and grabbed the ankles of the waitress he wanted torndate. Scared out of her wits, did she sue? No, but she couldrnhave. Instead, she married him. The waitress, a street-smartrnwoman who had flashing eyes and walked with a swagger, wasrnnot easily buffaloed by Yahoos.rnCharles Hardy, president of Forklift Systems, Inc., inrnNashville, Tennessee, is the latest Yahoo to be captured.rn”You’re a woman, what do you know?” Hardy once said tornhis female manager. Another time he called her “a dumb-assrnwoman,” and eventually, probably to his everlasting amazement,rnhe was dragged before the Supreme Court of thern24/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn