Sexual Harassment

Reprinted from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violatesTitle VII of the Civil Rights Act of1964. Title VII applies to employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations, as well as to the federal government.

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and otherverbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexualharassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment,unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, orcreates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.

Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances,including but not limited to the following:

• The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. Thevictim does not have to be of the opposite sex.


• The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, an agent of theemployer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or anon-employee.


• The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could beanyone affected by the offensive conduct.


• Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury toor discharge of the victim.


• The harasser's conduct must be unwelcome.

It is helpful for the victim to inform the harasser directlythat the conduct is unwelcome and must stop. The victim should useany employer complaint mechanism or grievance system available.

When investigating allegations of sexual harassment, EEOC looksat the whole record: the circumstances, such as the nature of thesexual advances, and the context in which the alleged incidentsoccurred. A determination on the allegations is made from the factson a case-by-case basis.

Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment inthe workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary toprevent sexual harassment from occurring. They should clearlycommunicate to employees that sexual harassment will not betolerated. They can do so by providing sexual harassmenttraining to their employees and by establishing an effective complaint orgrievance process and taking immediate and appropriate action whenan employee complains.

It is also unlawful to retaliate against an individual foropposing employment practices that discriminate based on sex or for filing adiscrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or litigation under Title VII.

Statistics

In Fiscal Year 2003, EEOC received 13,566 charges of sexual harassment. Almost 15% of those charges were filed by males. EEOC resolved 14,534 sexual harassment charges in FY 2003 and recovered $50 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals (not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation).

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