San Antonio Employment Discrimination Lawyer & Attorney : McKinney Law Firm : Sexual Harassment, Wrongful Termination : Texas

Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates the federal Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act.  These laws apply 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.

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature 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, including but not limited to the following:

• The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.
• 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.
• Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.
• The harasser's conduct must be unwelcome.

If possible, it is helpful for the victim to inform the harasser directly that the conduct is unwelcome and must stop. The victim should also use any employer complaint mechanism or grievance system available.  It is also unlawful for an employer to retaliate against an individual for complaining of harassment or discrimination or for filing a discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or litigation under an anti-discrimination law.