EXECUTIVE MEMO
Court Rejects Harassment Excuses
exual harassment is in the eye of the victim-or at least in the eye of a "reasonable person"-a federal court has ruled.
The ruling came in the case of Richard L. Frazier, a Department of Housing and Urban Development employee whose suggestive comments and crotch-grabbing were excused because he didn't know any better. The court reinstated a 60-day suspension HUD officials had ordered for Frazier for his "notoriously disgraceful conduct." An arbitrator had previously rejected the punishment on the grounds that Frazier's "many statements of a sexual nature" were nothing new. He had been behaving the same way for 25 years and didn't know his conduct was harassment, the arbitrator found.
But the alleged harasser's views aren't what counts, said the court. Instead,anyone assessing potentially harassing behavior must ask whether a "reasonable person" and the victim would find the conduct hostile or abusive. The test first was used in 1994 in the case of Philip G. Hillen, an Army manager accused of sexually suggestive comments and touching. The ruling makes clear the courts expect managers and arbitrators to look to those being harassed, not the alleged perpetrators, to define harassment.
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