What to do about sexual harassment at work

Contact an employment lawyer right away if you have been or are being sexually harassed at work. An employment lawyer will help you exercise your right to be free from workplace sexual harassment and will help you with legal claims you may have because of the sexual harassment. Don’t flirt with the harasser or discuss personal mattersKeep your communications about work. Don’t flirt. Don’t laugh it off. Don’t have long text message chats about personal matters. If you are asked personal or sexual questions, either say that they make you uncomfortable or ignore them and re-direct the conversation to work. If the harasser touches you, for example, an arm around you, rubbing your shoulders or neck, a hand on your leg, and certainly any contact with your intimates, move away.Check your employee handbook and follow the policyYour employer should have a written policy prohibiting sexual harassment. Usually it is in the Employee Handbook or Personnel Manual, and sometimes you can find it on the company website or internal server where your employer makes all of its employment policies available.If you can’t find it, ask Human Resources or a supervisor other than the harasser for a copy.If there is a policy, follow...

Religious and cultural expression in the workplace

I recently received a call from a Native American being harassed at work because his hair is long.  Many Native Americans' wear their hair long as an expression of their ancestry and heritage, and because they maintain sincere religious beliefs that long hair is a sacred symbol of their life and experience in the world and should only be cut to mark major life events, such as the death of a loved one.  To my knowledge, the only federal court to address this issue is the Fifth Circuit, which ruled in favor of a Native American boy and permitted him to wear his hair long at school.  As I considered the facts of the case, I was reminded of a recent press release from the EEOC announcing a lawsuit against a corporation that failed to hire a qualified applicant because she wore dreadlocks.According to the EEOC's suit, after completing an online job application, Chastity Jones was among a group of  applicants who were selected for a group interview on May 12, 2010.  At the time of the interview, Jones, who is black,  had blond hair that was dreaded in neat curls, or "curllocks." Catastrophe's human resources staff conducted  the group interview and...

EEOC’s Public Portal online now

Today, employment attorneys and the public watched as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) launched an EEOC Public Portal to provide online access to individuals inquiring about discrimination.“This secure online system makes the EEOC and an individual’s charge information available wherever and whenever it is most convenient for that individual,” said EEOC Acting Chair Victoria A. Lipnic. “It’s a giant leap forward for the EEOC in providing online services.”The EEOC Public Portal allows individuals to submit initial online inquiries and request intake interviews with the agency. Initial inquiries and intake interviews are typically the first steps for individuals seeking to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC.In the fiscal year 2017, the EEOC responded to over 550,000 calls to the toll-free number and more than 140,600 inquiries in field offices, reflecting the significant public demand for EEOC’s services. Handling this volume of contacts through an online system is more efficient for the public and the agency as it reduces the time and expense of paper submissions.The new system enables individuals to sign and file a charge prepared by the EEOC digitally. Once an individual files a charge, he or she can use the EEOC Public Portal to provide and...