History

• Early workplace harassment laws in the United States grew from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. With the Civil Rights Act on the books, it became illegal to harass individuals in the workplace because of these personally identifying traits. One of the first employers to take affirmative steps toward eliminating workplace harassment was the United States Department of Defense.
  
  

Features

• Workplace harassment includes a broad array of offensive, disturbing, upsetting, or threatening behavior. In order for the harassment to be actionable from a legal standpoint, it normally must be so pervasive that the targeted employee is unable to undertake his or her job duties without undue disruption. Indeed, certain types of workplace harassment can rise to the level that it creates a hostile work environment.
  
  

Hostile Work Environment

• Twenty-two years after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, the United States Supreme Court ruled that employers could be sued by their employees based on the promotion of a sexually hostile work environment. Subsequent cases recognized that a hostile work environment can exist for other underlying reasons as well: race, religion, national origin, and so forth. A hostile work environment exists when a particular employee fears going to work because of the significant level of ongoing harassment.
  
  

Expansion of Offensive Conduct

• Over the course of the past 40 years, the types of underlying discriminatory conduct that result in workplace harassment expanded. Workplace harassment arises out of an oppressive atmosphere created because of a person's age, veteran status, or disability in addition to the other factors established following the passage of the Civil Rights Act. In certain jurisdictions (although not universally across the United States), other considerations include sexual orientation, citizenship status, personal appearance, or marital status.
  
  

Employer Liability

• If it is demonstrated that the employer--through managers or supervisors--possesses actual knowledge of workplace harassment and takes no reasonable steps to correct the situation, the employer can be liable to the employee for damages in many instances. In order to pursue such a case, the employee needs to notify management of the harassing conduct. Moreover, the conduct must be recurring and not an isolated incident.