Workplace discrimination is illegal under both Texas state law and federal statutes. One of the most common forms of discrimination reported by modern workers involve workplace harassment.
Companies that ignore complaints of harassment and allow on-the-job abuse to proliferate effectively discriminate against those targeted by co-workers or supervisors. Employees can report concerns about harassment internally and can potentially also file a lawsuit if the company doesn’t respond appropriately to their concerns.
Texas state law makes it quite clear that not every situation involving unpleasant workplace encounters actually constitutes harassment. What are the basic requirements for misconduct on the job to constitute actionable harassment?
Unwanted interactions
Whether someone claims to have experienced sexual harassment or racial harassment on the job, the interactions they have with their co-workers must be unwanted or unwelcome. Typically, it is the responsibility of a worker to assert themselves and inform their co-workers or others in positions of authority that certain conduct makes them uncomfortable. If the behavior continues despite a worker informing others that the conduct is unwelcome, then continued misconduct may constitute harassment.
A pattern of behavior
A single incident is rarely adequate to make a claim of workplace harassment. Instead, workers generally need to experience repeated incidents that target them because of a protected characteristic. The state generally expects plaintiffs making claims of workplace harassment to have proof of pervasive or ongoing mistreatments related to one of their protected characteristics. That behavior can occur either on the job or even away from work if employees have after-hours contact with each other.
Severe misconduct
Technically, harassment depends primarily on the perspective of the victim, not those making off-colored jokes at someone else’s expense. That being said, the situation must be severe enough for other reasonable people to believe that the misconduct is abusive.
Particularly in scenarios where workers claim they have experienced a hostile work environment related to harassment, they need proof that the situation is serious enough to warrant managerial intervention or claims brought to regulatory agencies. If other reasonable people might view the same situation as abusive and a severe violation of a worker’s rights, then they may have grounds to claim that the company discriminated against them by allowing the harassment to continue.
Texas state authorities and federal agencies take claims of harassment and other forms of discrimination seriously, but workers must ensure that their allegations meet the standards imposed by the law if they hope to secure relief. Understanding what constitutes harassment can help workers assert themselves when dealing with consistent and untenable abuse in the workplace.