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Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act among others. The laws apply to applies to employers, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations, as well as to the federal government.
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute 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.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) protect individuals against employment discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race, color, national origin, and religion. Title VII and FEHA applies to most employers, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations.
It is unlawful to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of his/her sex in regard to hiring, termination, promotion, compensation, job training, or any other term, condition, or privilege of employment. Title VII and FEHA also prohibit employment decisions based on stereotypes and assumptions about abilities, traits, or the performance of individuals on the basis of sex. Title VII and FEHA prohibit both intentional discrimination and neutral job policies that disproportionately exclude individuals on the basis of sex and that are not job related.
An employer may not fire, demote, harass or otherwise “retaliate” against an individual for filing a charge of discrimination, participating in a discrimination proceeding, or otherwise opposing discrimination. The same laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, and disability, as well as wage differences between men and women performing substantially equal work, also prohibit retaliation against individuals who oppose unlawful discrimination or participate in an employment discrimination proceeding.