Sexual Harassment

Workplace Harassment and Employment Discrimination

Employment law provides substantial protections from the workplace misconduct. Yet despite these existing laws and company policies enacted to protect individual dignity, workplace harassment and discrimination continues.

Various federal and state laws define employee rights and an employer’s liability for employment law violations. Over the years, the Supreme Court has consistently presented a clear conception of discrimination: All workplace practices, including hiring, firing, pay, and promotions, must be based on merit and not on race, gender, age, religion, disability, or other protected status.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination and can take the form of any unwanted and unwelcomed sexual behavior. Harassment may be verbal (derogatory comments, sexually explicit jokes, “locker room” stories, etc.) or physical (emailing or displaying derogatory images or art, and inappropriate advances or conduct).

Despite the discomfort these discriminatory acts may cause, the conduct must be both unwelcomed and offensive to the victim to be considered illegal. Sexual harassment is not limited to a male boss harassing his female employee. Harassment can come in many forms:

• The harasser does not have to fire or otherwise economically injured the victims for them to be sexually harassed.
• The victims of sexual harassment do not have to be of a different sex from the harasser.
• The harasser can be a coworker, supervisor, an employee in another department, or even a non-employee (for example: a client, contractor, or vendor).
• Victims do not have to be the person directly harassed. Anyone affected by the offensive conduct of the harasser can claim harassment.

Additionally, an act of sexual harassment need not occur during working hours nor do claims have to be work-related. Sexual harassment lawsuits can be filed whenever another person violates a professional relationship, including inappropriate and undesired sexual advances or coercion between educator and student, lawyer and client, doctor and patient, and other such professional relationships.

If you believe you are a victim of workplace harassment, feel free to contact us online or call us at 800-705-2121 and give us the details of your matter so that we can discuss it with you. Our attorneys are experienced in the investigation and handling of sexual harassment claims and may be able to help.