1. Doesn't sexual harassment have to involve sexual advances or other conduct sexual in nature?
2. Is sexual harassment limited to situations where supervisors make sexual demands on subordinates?
3. Can harassment occur without physical touching or a threat to the employee's job?
4. Can individuals be legally liable for harassment, or just employers?
5. Should I complaint to my employer regarding discriminatory/harassing conduct by a supervisor or co-employee?

1. Doesn't sexual harassment have to involve sexual advances or other conduct sexual in nature?

Answer: No. The 1980 EEOC Guidelines on Sexual Harassment do suggest that conduct constituting sexual harassment must be "conduct of a ," but it is just as wrong and just as unlawful to harass people with gender-based conduct of a non- . The key question is not whether the conduct was sexual in nature but whether it was based on the victim's gender.

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2. Is sexual harassment limited to situations where supervisors make sexual demands on subordinates?

Answer: No. Sexual power plays by super-visors constitute the most widely publi-cized and easily understood form of sexual harassment. But harassment also occurs when supervisors, co-workers, or even nonemployees create a hostile environment through unwelcome sexual advances or de-meaning gender-based conduct.

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3. Can harassment occur without physical touching or a threat to the employee's job?

Answer: Yes. The nature of harassment may be purely verbal or visual ( ographic photos or graffiti on workplace walls, for example), and it does not have to involve any job loss. Any conduct based on a protected status that creates a work environment that a reasonable person would consider hostile may amount to harassment.

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4. Can individuals be legally liable for harassment, or just employers?

Answer: Some courts have held that indi-vidual employees cannot be liable under Title VII. In contrast, In New York, the New York City Human Rights Law has been consistently interpreted to provide for the liability of co-employees who actually engage in discriminatory misconduct. The issue of co-employee liability is complex, and should be discussed in detail with your attorney. Our Firm has successfully argued cases against co-employees.

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5. Should I complain to my employer regarding discriminatory/harassing conduct by a supervisor or co-employee?

Answer:If you fail to use internal complaint procedures, the employer's defense team will be sure to use that fact to argue that (1) the conduct complained of never occurred, (2) the conduct was not really unwelcome, (3) the conduct was not severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment, or (4) the employer cannot be held responsible for preventing or correcting harassment that it did not know about. You should discuss this issue, in depth, with an experienced employment law attorney.

Under the 1998 decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ellerth and Faragher, if the employer has an effective anti-harassment policy that the employee unreasonably fails to use, the employer may win a hostile environment lawsuit on that ground alone.

Failing to complain can be particu-larly harmful to your legal interests if you claim that harassment forced you to quit.

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