Is Sexual Harassment in the Workplace a Crime?

Sexual harassment remains a problem in workplaces all over the US, violating state and federal civil laws in the process. However, all instances of sexual harassment cannot be considered a crime involving sexual harassment lawyers and have them scrambling to grab their smart phones, laptops, and tablets. It will be interesting to determine what constitutes sexual harassment and what doesn’t.

You have the right to work in peace. You have the right to try to accomplish your daily goals without worrying about some selfish person trying to undermine your quality of life. If you have been sexually harassed you need legal help from a sexual harassment lawyer. You can find this legal help right here: http://sexual-harassment-lawyers.usattorneys.com/. It is come for you to stand up to this and to put a stop to it. 

Whenever the practice of sexual harassment prevails in the workplace, it is deemed a civil offense. This signifies that a victim can sue the harasser in a civil court for fiscal damages. Sexual harassment is gender-neutral in nature since men as well as women can be the victims of the practice. Here are the some instances of sexual harassment:

Unwelcome Conduct...

• Of a sexual nature
• That creates an offensive or hostile work environment
• That is an unfavorable job action against a victim

Unwelcome Conduct

Consent does not necessarily constitute a defense to sexual harassment. Considering the power dynamics that often prevails between a victim and perpetrator, the victim might not resist and may even permit sexual conduct for fear of retaliation or losing his/her job. By recognizing this reality, sexual harassment can happen even when a victim does consent based on this notion and common reality. This is where a sexual harassment attorney comes into the fray who could even throw more light on this matter should you need legal recourse.

The victim must find this conduct wholly unwelcome. Under the circumstances, if a victim suffers silently without objecting to a manager’s continual sexual comments, he/she can experience sexual harassment, as stipulated by law. On the contrary an employee who fully and wholeheartedly participates in the sexual banter with a supervisor cannot prove that it was unwelcome conduct. Therefore, this doesn’t come under the purview of sexual harassment law.

Sexual in Nature

The conduct needn’t be openly sexual in nature, or provoked by the harasser’s desire of sex. In case the conduct is overtly sexual in its implications or directed at a victim owing to his/her gender, it entails sexual harassment.

Offensive or Hostile Environment

The unwelcome conduct must reach a certain degree to be considered sexual harassment. It has to be serious like physical assault or pervasive like a continuous onslaught of commentary, offensive visuals, requests for dates, and other acts of an intimidating nature. A single, minor episode like a dirty joke in the cafeteria would not be counted as sexual harassment, under federal law, according to sexual harassment lawyers (but the person who tells this type of joke can still be written up by his company or organization and put on notice). 

However and moreover, a workplace full of offensive visuals such as drawings, photographs, or images on computer monitors and screens can be deemed an offensive working environment under the law.

There has been many reports of federal and other government employees spending time online looking at porn. This is a waste of tax payer money and paints a picture of a lazy bureaucrat that does not have enough work to do to justify them even having a job.

Adverse Job Action

Sometimes a harasser might involve unfavorable actions against a victim. These include bad performance reviews or termination that often happens when the victim resists the harassment. A prime example is that of an employer firing his employee for not submitting to his sexual advances.

Sexual harassment in any workplace becomes a crime when the following actions occur:

• Rape
• Assault and battery
• False imprisonment
• Bullying
• Stalking
•  Pornography (which is what federal employees, as already stated, are doing every day since they have so much time on their hands)

If you are victim of sexual harassment at your workplace, your best recourse is to hire a sexual harassment lawyer as soon as possible to protect your rights and to make sure you can tend to your job in peace.