What is Harassment or Hostile Work Environment?
Harassment is a form of discrimination, and is generally treatment that is offensive and occurs because of a persons gender, race, national origin, religion or some other protected category. Harassment can take many forms, including offensive comments, requests for sexual favors, touching, photographs, and drawings. Harassment can also include stalking, assignment to undesirable positions or tasks. Sexual harassment is often clearly sexual in nature, but it does not have to be in order to give rise to a claim. Closely tied with the issue of harassment is the concept of hostile environment. A hostile environment arises when the harassment is severe and pervasive, and prevents a person from being able to do their job. Thus a single offensive comment would not generally create a hostile environment unless that single act was extremely egregious. Claims of harassment and retaliation also must be reported to the EEOC.
