I. Introduction – What Is Sexual Harassment?

The Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (“CAA”), 2 U.S.C. §§ 1301 et seq., applies thirteen federal labor and employment law statutes to all legislative branch employing offices and employees. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) is one of the federal employment law statutes incorporated by the CAA and explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.” While Title VII’s statutory language does not expressly prohibit “sexual harassment,” the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency entrusted with enforcement of Title VII, has interpreted sexual discrimination as including sexual harassment and the EEOC’s guidelines specifically identify sexual harassment as a type of sexual discrimination. Moreover, the Supreme Court has expressly approved of the EEOC’s conclusion that the statutory language in Title VII proscribes “sexual harassment” as one manifestation of discrimination on the basis of sex. See Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 63-66 (1986).

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.

Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including but not limited to the following:

• The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.
• The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a non-employee.
• The victim does not have to be the person harassed, but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.
• Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.