The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency responsible for enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended
The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency responsible for enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended (Title VII). More specifically, harassment based on sex is a violation of Section 703 of Title VII. 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.
As stated by the EEOC, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual natures constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.
Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances. Victims may be male or female. The conduct must be unwelcome. The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker or a non-employee. The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct. It can occur without economic injury and without an affected individual being fired.
It is also unlawful to retaliate against an individual for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on sex or filing a discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding or litigation under Title VII.
For example, in a February 5, 2014 press release, the EEOC announced that a labor staffing company would pay $150,000 to settle a retaliation lawsuit brought by EEOC attorneys on behalf of a female office administrator who reported sexual harassment. According to the EEOC, the employee reported that she received sexually harassing phone calls from her supervisor and three days after the complaint, the company fired her, citing six separate reasons for the termination. She was then escorted off the premises by police officers. EEOC attorneys filed th