Whether a work environment is actually sexually hostile depends on whether that’s how an average person would perceive it. A supersensitive person won’t get to sue for sexual harassment if an ordinary person would brush off the alleged harassment.

The 4th Circuit just made it easier for employees to sue for having to work in a hostile environment. The court said that unpleasant and offensive conduct aimed as one’s sex or race does not have to happen in the presence of the employee who winds up complaining. Conduct witnessed by other employees can be used as evidence ...

Surprise! Supervisors sometimes say dumb things. It may be entirely innocent—they simply don’t realize the impact their words may have. If that’s the case, and someone complains, it may be best to settle the case and move on.

Probationary university professors whose contracts aren’t renewed because they failed to achieve tenure status can’t use tenure denial alone as the basis of a suit alleging damage to their reputations. They must show that the decision was actually motivated by something like race or sex discrimination.

Sometimes, employees don’t have enough information to judge whether something they observe at work is discrimination—or a legitimate management action.

California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act protects employees from sexual harassment by co-workers. But what happens if management stops the harassment but the co-workers find other ways to make life miserable for their victims? It’s HR’s responsibility to make sure a victim of sexual harassment isn’t targeted for other mistreatment ...

A federal judge has given final approval to the settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit brought by financial advisors against Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. The settlement establishes a $16 million fund, of which $14 million will be divided among class members who submitted claims.

The EEOC has settled a lawsuit it filed against Texas-based Cadit Co., which was doing work for the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The agency said Cadit allowed a foreman to harass a Chinese-American welder.

Employees who are fired after breaking work rules often allege that they were targeted because of some protected characteristic like gender, age, race or ethnicity. The best way to counter such claims is to know beforehand whether your organization is being tougher on some employees who belong to a protected class while letting others slide.

If anything would add to the avalanche of employment suits already burying employers in litigation, it would be providing free legal counsel to employees who sue. Fortunately, at least one federal court hearing a New Jersey case has nixed the idea.

Supervisors and managers, take note: You may be personally liable for aiding and abetting discrimination that is illegal under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.

A recent federal trial court decision has given new ammo to employees who want to sue their employers for sexual harassment—especially if the alleged harassment involves any kind of touching.

A woman who was fired for allegedly secretly recording a conversation she had with a supervisor about harassment can still sue for sexual harassment, a federal court has ruled. It did not matter that secretly recording conversations may be a crime in Pennsylvania.

In the real world, hurling insults at workers is a recipe for disaster, as the catering company that provides food service at the Comcast Center in Philadelphia recently learned ...

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has ordered Plum Entertainment, a New Hope theater production company, to pay $162,000 to Sharon Sheridan, a former personal assistant who claimed she was fired for complaining about sexual harassment.