Her boss allegedly watched pornography in his office. He called her co-worker a fat ass. Then, he described how his male cat raped his female cat.
Offensive, yes. But it wasn’t sexual harassment, an appeals court ruled recently. The United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found that the plaintiff, a school bus driver, had only a “tangential intersection” with the inappropriate conduct.
Title VII, the federal law in place to protect women from sexual harassment at work, “is not a code of civility,” wrote Judge Richard A. Posner, in speaking to the difference the court sees between offensive conduct and sexual harassment.
The case illustrates the vast gray area that exists in what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, says Charles Shanor, a professor at Emory University School of Law and former counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“The Supreme Court has said that the harassment must be severe and pervasive,” Shanor says. “What is severe and pervasive to one woman on average might not be severe and pervasive to another.”
Title VII is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But more than four decades later, harassment remains pervasive, says Jocelyn Samuels, vice president of education and employment at the National Women’s Law Center.
“There are numerous cases of alleged workplace culture suffused with harassing language and conduct,” she says. “In 2007, far too many women are plagued by this type of discrimination.”
Sexual harassment often forces women to leave their jobs, contributing to the so-called glass ceiling that prevents women’s salaries from keeping pace with men’s, Samuels says.
What should you do if you are being sexually harassed at work?
It depends on the situation. Often the first step is to tell the harasser he is out of line. Sometimes this will stop the problem. In other cases, confronting the harasser could prompt a physical confrontation. “A woman is under no obligation to put herself in danger to solve the harassment,” Samuels says.
If the harassment continues, the woman should file a complaint with the human resources department. Companies are required to have procedures for filing a sexual harassment complaint. In some cases, however, the harasser is in charge of administering complaints—or the company has a history of retaliating against women who file charges or failing to enforce its policy.
