Sexual Harassment Case

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Sexual harassment violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This applies to state, local and federal governments. As per the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), harassment includes “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors and other verbal or physical harassment of sexual nature. This will constitute as harassment when the type of conduct would explicitly or implicitly affect an individual’s employment, interferes the individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a co-worker or a non-employee. The harasser’s conduct must be welcome. The victim should try and inform …show more content…
Thomas’s invitations for lunch, letters and cards expressing his affection for Pope, sending her roses had made Pope very uncomfortable. Pope had expressed to Thomas that she was married and that they should remain just friends. Through this Pope was indirectly trying to inform Thomas that such kind of behavior is unwelcome and should stop. She had even expressed concern regarding this to one of the employees. To some extent this shows that due to Thomas’s behavior she was upset and uncomfortable. According to Pope, Thomas was paying more attention to her and his behavior was different towards her. He even spent more time in her department talking to other employees and her. This also indicates that he did try to interfere in her job. However, this does to some extent point towards an intimidating or offensive work environment. The case also states that during one instance Thomas’s touched Pope, but it is unclear whether it was a physical harassment. Since both the parties have mentioned two different intentions. Thomas informed that he was trying to calm Pope as she was agitated and Pope informed that he meant to stroke her hair. Additional information would be required to assess that aspect of the case. Hence, Thomas’s behavior does point towards sexual harassment of verbal nature under the EEOC …show more content…
As per the Code of Federal Regulations, in order to determine that alleged conduct constitutes sexual harassment, the EEOC will take in to consideration the circumstances in totality in which the sexual harassment occurred. Circumstances include nature of sexual advances and the context in which the alleged incident occurred. The determination would be made from the facts and on a case to case basis (Code of Federal Regulations, 2011). With respect to Thomas Griffin’s case the Commission would consider the motive or intention. However, even though Griffin likes her which is the motive/ intention to make the sexual advances, the victim has been rejecting his feelings. She has informed him to stop making the unwanted sexual advances but Griffin had continued to harass her. Rejection of his feelings and asking him to stop is an important aspect of this case. More than Griffin’s intention the Commission would give more importance to this aspect. In my opinion, in the case given case Griffin’s motive need not be considered as the other circumstances in the case point towards sexual