HARASSMENT
 

Many people think of harassment as solely related to gender or sex, when the law prohibits harassment on the basis of any protected class.  This has been caused at least in part by the failure of employers to focus their training on anything but sexual harassment.  In addition, often employer’s policies do not even mention racial or other forms of harassment.

General Legal Standard
 
Under State or Federal law, if your supervisor or co-worker harasses you because of your race, color, gender, pregnancy, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity, you may have a claim for harassment.

Sex Harassment
 
Examples of sexual harassment may include:
 
  • Being propositioned by a supervisor for sex in exchange for career advancement
  • Telling dirty jokes
  • Displaying nude pictures
  • Being inappropriately touched or physically assaulted
In addition to the more obvious forms of sexual harassment, a supervisor may harass you on the basis of your sex in a manner that is not overtly sexual. This often occurs when women step out of stereotyped roles and rise into management or upper management. 

Click here to read about Trish Fulkerson's experience
 
Sexual Orientation Harassment

Examples of sexual orientation harassment may include:

 

  • Calling someone offensive names related to their sexual orientation
  • Making stereotyped comments about how homosexuals are only interested in shopping or dancing
  • Telling someone that because they are homosexual that they are against the bible and God.
Racial Harassment
 
A manager has a duty to stop discrimination.  If he or she allows racial slurs or jokes or harassment of a person of color to continue, that means the manager likely agrees with the racial comments being made.

Examples of racial harassment may include:

  • Telling racial jokes
  • Making stereotyped comments about race such as referring to African Americans as prone to crime or being really good at sports
  • Supporting or ignoring racial comments by coworkers
  • Managers or coworkers discovering that a non-white employee is married to or dating a white person, triggering racial bias in one or more coworkers where none was obvious before
Religious Harassment

While the following may result in a claim for religious discrimination, these examples may also create a claim for a hostile environment based upon one’s religion.

Examples may include:

  • Telling religious jokes
  • Making negative comments about religion
  • Refusing to provide required religious accommodations such as prayer, attending church, temple or mosque on certain days, and food or apparel requirements
All information on our website is meant to be generally informative. To find out whether your may have a harassment case, you should consult a lawyer of your choice.
 
 

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Litigation
News & Events

9.13.11: Wall Street Journal Law Blog Class Action Trial Against the State of Iowa.pdf

9.29.10:  Des Moines Register - Employment bias lawsuit against state gets class-action status 

9.28.10:  KCCI Channel 8 - State Faces Class-Action Discrimination Lawsuit

9.28.10:  Chicago Tribune - Judge expands scope of Iowa hiring lawsuit

8.27.10:  Des Moines Register - 5 women sue toy firm, say they were harassed

8.26.10: Business Record - Toy distributor faces sexual harassment claims

8.26.10:  WHO-TV - Indianola toy company sued by former employees over claims of sexual harassment

9.29.09:  WHO-TV reports of ongoing discrimination in State government

9.17.09:  Findings of race discrimination removed from State of Iowa report

3.4.09:  Iowa Central Community College Settles Case with Mary Conrad

11.21.08: Ex-ISU Coach Awarded $287,000

7.19.08:  Lawsuit Against Iowa Central Community College Goes On

10.30.07: State of Iowa Sued for Widespread Race Discrimination 

3.12.08: Fairfield Worker Wins Wrongful Termination Case

10.11.06: State of Iowa Bias Against African American Employees

10.1.06: Employees Accuse Iowa Workforce Development of Racism

11.24.05: Eliserio v. United Steelworkers - Racial Discrimination Case 

7.15.05: Fattahi v. Iowa DOT - Discrimination Case

4.28.04: Fulkerson v. Borgen Systems - Sexual Harassment Case