Know Your Rights If You Have Experienced Sexual Harassment At Work
Sexual harassment can affect your ability to perform your job and make going to work each day a nightmare. After all, you should be judged by your skills, experience and knowledge, not by your gender. Fortunately, you have Johnson & Bennett on your side.
Our women-owned law firm advocates for the rights of employees to work in a harassment-free environment. We have dedicated our careers to helping workers find the justice they deserve. Our efforts and commitment have paid off in high-value verdicts and settlements and in the equal treatment of women and men in the workplace and in schools. Recently, our partners won several $1 million verdicts and settlements in employment discrimination and harassment claims. We also won the right for a Mississippi teen to take her girlfriend to the prom.*
Defining Sexual Harassment
The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects covered employees from sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is harassment based upon your gender and includes conduct that adversely affects your job, interferes with your performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. According to Title VII, conduct that may be sexual harassment includes:
- Unwelcome sexual advances
- Requests for sexual favors
- Sexually explicit physical conduct
- Sexually offensive photographs, drawings or depictions
- Dirty jokes or verbal comments of a sexual nature
- Emails, text messages or any other electronic transmission of sexually explicit comments or pictures
Isolated, offhand remarks and minor offenses are not considered sexual harassment. However, a single serious event or a pattern of offensive conduct may be. Even if your employment or job performance is not adversely affected, you may have grounds for a valid sexual harassment complaint.
You may be a woman or a man, as might your harasser, and you may be the same or opposite genders. Your harasser may be your co-worker, your supervisor, a supervisor in a different department, an agent of your employer, your client, your customer or your vendor. The harassment may be department- or company-wide and may involve multiple perpetrators and victims or may involve only you and your harasser. You need not be the target of the harassment to complain. Harassment of another person may affect you and may be the cause for a sexual harassment complaint.
What You Should Do If You Are Sexually Harassed
You must take action in order to preserve your sexual harassment charge. Our law firm recommends these important steps to end the harassment and support your legal claim:
- Because sexual advances must be unwelcome, make clear your demand that the conduct stops.
- Follow your employee handbook protocol for reporting sexual harassment.
- Complain to your supervisor, human resources director or another appropriate person in authority.
- Keep documents related to your sexual harassment, such as emails, notes, text messages or voicemails.
- Record offensive incidents, employer responses and other matters related to your harassment in a daily logbook.
- File your EEOC charge by the deadline.
Stop The Harassment In Your Workplace
You have the right to work in a harassment-free job. Johnson & Bennett pursues your rightful remedy for sexual harassment in your workplace. Our firm offers a free case evaluation after we receive some basic information. Simply fill out our online contact form or call our Memphis office at 901-563-1886 or our Jackson, MS office at 769-207-0599.
*Disclaimer: Results are not typical.