Preventing Workplace Harassment
Abusive Conduct
Conduct a reasonable person would find hostile or offensive, and unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests, including performance standards. Examples of abusive conduct can include bullying, repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets; verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating; or the gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person’s work performance.
Bullying
A type of abusive conduct which can occur if an employer or employee engages in workplace conduct with malice that a reasonable person would find hostile or offensive and is unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests, including performance standards.
Bystander Effect
A phenomenon where people are less likely to object to or report inappropriate conduct when others also witness the same misconduct. The bystander effect is thought to arise, in part, from diffusion of responsibility. Bystander intervention techniques are taught to empower bystanders to intervene.
Bystander Intervention Techniques
Techniques you can use and actions you can take when you witness sexual harassment, other forms of workplace harassment or any inappropriate workplace behavior. A bystander can intervene directly or indirectly, by, for example, distracting the target or perpetrator of the inappropriate conduct or by reporting the conduct to a supervisor or human resources (HR).
Diffusion of Responsibility
The tendency of a person to feel less responsibility to help or intervene in a given situation when there are others present, because the person assumes that someone else will take action. Social psychology research indicates that diffusion of responsibility increases as the number of bystanders increases.
Gender Identity
Gender identity can be defined as each person’s internal understanding of their gender, which may include male, female, a combination of male and female, neither male nor female, a gender different from the person’s sex assigned at birth, or transgender. States and localities that prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity frequently include a jurisdiction-specific definition of gender identity in their laws or regulations.
Gender identity is a protected characteristic under the law of some states and localities. In these states and localities, workplace discrimination, including harassment, on the basis of gender identity is prohibited. Generally, if state or local law prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity, discrimination on the basis of gender expression is also prohibited.
Gender Expression
In some states and localities, workplace discrimination on the basis of gender expression is prohibited.
Gender expression relates to how a person’s gender identity is expressed. Gender expression includes a person’s gender-related appearance or behavior, or the perception of such appearance or behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s sex assigned at birth.
Hostile Environment
Arises when harassment related to a protected characteristic is so severe or pervasive that it interferes with the employee’s ability to perform their work.
Protected Characteristics
Federal law protects employees nationwide from harassment and discrimination based on certain individual characteristics. These include sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and transgender status), race, color, national origin, religion, disability, age (40 or older), and genetic information (including family medical history).
State and local laws may protect employees on the basis other characteristics. Some examples of state or local protected characteristics are gender identity or expression, ancestry, familial status, parenthood, age (18+), political affiliation, height and weight, marital status, creed and belief, status as a crime victim and status as a public assistance recipient.
Quid Pro Quo Harassment
Quid pro quo means “this for that”. Quid pro quo sexual harassment occurs when submission to or rejection of unwelcome sexual conduct is used as the basis for decisions affecting a person’s employment, such as whether the person is promoted or receives a raise.
Reporting
Sharing concerns about inappropriate behavior with a supervisor, HR, another member of management or external government agencies, such as the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and state and local agencies.
Retaliation
Occurs when employers treat applicants, employees, former employees, or people closely associated with these individuals, less favorably for reporting discrimination, participating in a discrimination investigation or lawsuit, or opposing discrimination (for example, threatening to file a charge or complaint of discrimination).
All employees are protected from retaliation for opposing harassment or discrimination, reporting in good faith a concern about harassment or discrimination, filing a harassment or discrimination claim or charge in good faith (or encouraging another employee to do so) and testifying, assisting, or participating in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing related to harassment or discrimination.
Sex or Gender Stereotyping
The practice of ascribing to a person specific attributes, characteristics or roles by reason only of the person’s sex or gender. Sex or gender stereotyping includes making assumptions about a person’s appearance or behavior, gender roles, or an ability or inability to perform certain kinds of work based on a myth, social expectation, or generalization about the individual’s sex or gender.
Sex-Based Discrimination
Involves treating an applicant or employee unfavorably because of that person’s sex, including the person’s sexual orientation or transgender status or gender identity or expression.
Sexual Harassment
A form of illegal sex discrimination. There are two kinds of sexual harassment: quid pro quo sexual harassment and hostile environment. Sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.
Transgender Status
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of transgender status.
In Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020), the Supreme Court held that under Title VII, when an employer discriminates against an employee for being transgender, the employer “necessarily and intentionally discriminates against that individual in part because of sex.” Bostock, at 665.
EEOC guidance reflects the Court’s Bostock holding and states “it is illegal to discriminate against someone (applicant or employee) because of that person’s … sex (including transgender status, sexual orientation, and pregnancy) …”
Workplace Harassment
Unwelcome, reasonably offensive treatment that is related to any protected characteristics.
The information contained on this page is for informational purposes only.
It does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice.