The country has laws protecting people against harassment in the workplace and courts in which those laws are supposed to be enforced. Several high-profile lawsuits — including Gretchen Carlson’s suit against the former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which was settled for $20 million — have reinforced this impression. But this notion is misleading. In fact, courts routinely dismiss cases brought by workers who claim their supervisors propositioned them, kissed them or grabbed their breasts. The judges declare that the conduct does not constitute harassment in a legal sense, and refuse to let the cases go to trial. How did we get here?