Feel free to take issue with it if you must, but the gist of the comment stands. Since I’m not an attorney I was not going to get into all the intricacies of sexual harassment law but instead wanted to try to boil it down to (you’ll pardon the pun) a lay definition. From the EEOC’s website:
So pretty much what I said. And how does one start the ball rolling on a sexual harassment claim? By making a complaint. Also pretty much what I said. If you want me to get even more specific I’d be happy to bury you in statutes, process and case law, but for purposes of answering the OP (as opposed to answering a blindside screed about “political correctness” which has no real place in this thread) my answer was sufficient.
I find this incredibly sexist and hypocritical. So becuase people think he’s a ‘lech’ he’s not allowed to post pictures of figure skaters?! Because he finds women sexually attractive, he’s not allowed to have photographs of women in his cube?
IMO, this has potential to get way out of control. Whats stopping me from forcing every coworker of mine to take down photos/pictures/whatever because I find it offensive and creating a ‘hostile work environment’ for me?
Oddly enough it still actually seems to have a function in many workplaces on earth. It seems to me that excessive PCness usually runs amok in situations where the anal retentive management are under the delusion that toeing the PC line will save them HR headaches (almost never the case IMHO).
In"cu*bus, n.; pl. E. Incubuses, L. Incubi. [L., the nightmare. Cf. Incubate.] 1. A demon; a fiend; a lascivious spirit, supposed to have sexual intercourse with women by night. --Tylor.
Thsi is not intended as legal advice. I am not your lawyer, you are not my client.
To be actionable on the federal level, sexual harassment has to be severe and pervasive enough to alter the victims working conditions and create a hostile working environment. The test as to whether or not a hostile environment exists is both objective (whether our good friend “the reasonable person” would think it was, looking at all the circumstances) and subjective, meaning the alleged victim must have subjectively perceived it as hostile. If nobody finds it subjectively offensive, then it’s not harassment.
But say somebody did. Does it constitute harassment? It depends. Courts look at all the circumstances that create the supposedly hostile environment; calanders, offensive comments, innappropriate touching, etc, etc. A case based on, say, a SI swimsuit calander in the mens room and nothing more might not survive summary judgment, but if the calendar is just one piece of a big creepy pie (like in Morgainelf’s example) it might. This is all federal, mind you; your state’s laws concerning harassment may vary.
