Sexual harassment is a type of discrimination that is based on sex. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) makes sexual harassment illegal. All employers with 15 or more employees must comply with Title VII. This includes employment agencies, labor unions and state and local governments.

Sexual harassment includes requests for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual advances, and other verbal comments or physical conduct of a sexual nature. However, in order to be actionable under Title VII, the harassment must be unwelcome and must unreasonably interfere with a person’s work performance.

The victim of sexual harassment may be a man or a woman and the victim does not need to be of the opposite sex as the harasser. The victim would be any person that is affected by the offensive conduct. The harassment does not have to be directed at a person to be actionable. There need not be economic injury (e.g., monetary loss) to the person harassed and sexual harassment is actionable even if the person harassed does not suffer adverse employment action (e.g., fired, demoted, etc.).

Finally, an employer may be held liable for conduct of a supervisor, co-worker, or even a non-employee if the employer knows of the offensive conduct and fails to take remedial action. However, the employee affected by sexual harassment must affirmatively take advantage of the EEO procedures, if any, made available to the employee by the company. Otherwise, the employer may defend by claiming that it attempted to curb harassment through the implementation of appropriate procedures, but the employee failed to take advantage of those procedures.