UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN River Falls
UWRF Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment: What You Need to Know
Report It - By visiting this page you likely wish to learn how you can report something that regards your welfare or safety, or that of a member or our campus community.
Sexual harassment at work occurs whenever unwelcome conduct on the basis of gender affects a person's job, It is defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:
The U.S. Supreme Court has simplified matters somewhat by explaining that there are two basic types of unlawful sexual harassment. The first type involves harassment that results in a tangible employment action. An example would be a supervisor who tells a subordinate that he or she must be sexually cooperative with the supervisor or he or she will be fired, and who then indeed does fire the subordinate for not submitting. The imposition of this crude "put out or get out” bargain is often referred to as quid pro quo ("this for that"). This kind of unlawful sexual harassment can be committed only by someone who can make or effectively influence employment actions (such as firing, demotion, and denial of promotion) that will affect the victimized employee.
A second type of unlawful sexual harassment is referred to as hostile environment. Unlike a quid pro quo, which only a supervisor can impose, a hostile environment can result from the gender-based unwelcome conduct of supervisors, co-workers, customers, vendors, or anyone else with whom the victimized employee Interacts .on the job. The behaviors that have contributed to a hostile environment have included:
These behaviors can create liability only if they are based on the affected employee's gender and are severe or pervasive, as explained in the next section. Nonetheless, even If unwelcome conduct falls short of a legal violation, employers have moral and organizational reasons as well as legal incentives to address and correct that conduct at its earliest stages. The conduct constituting sexual harassment is not always sexual in nature. One court held that a man's violent physical assault on a woman was sexual harassment because the assault was based on the woman's gender, even though there was nothing sexual about the assault itself. Suppose, for example, that men sabotage the work of a female co-worker because she is a woman. Even if the men don't engage in sexual behavior, such as telling off-color jokes or displaying pornographic photos on the walls, their behavior is sexual harassment because the behavior is based on the woman's gender.
UWRF - Faculty and Academic Staff Handbook: Sexual Harassment
UWRF - Student Conduct and Community Standards: Sexual Harassment Policies and Resources
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commision - Sexual Harassment
UWRF Center for Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
Report It - By visiting this page you likely wish to learn how you can report something that regards your welfare or safety, or that of a member or our campus community.
Page Updated Summer 2021 by Kaleah Bautch, MS, LPC - Personal Counselor in Student Health and Counseling at University of Wisconsin – River Falls