What is racial harassment?
What types of conduct are considered racial harassment?
What is racial harassment?
Racial harassment is a form of employment discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To be considered discrimination, the harassment must be based on some protected trait. Under federal law, those traits include race, color, national origin, gender, pregnancy, age, religion, disability and genetic information.
Racial harassment is unwelcome behavior that happens to you because of your race, color, or national origin, such as verbal or physical conduct of a racial nature.
Racial harassment in the workplace is unlawful when 1) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or 2) when the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a person would consider intimidating, hostile or abusive. This is also called hostile environment harassment.
Whether harassment is severe or pervasive is determined on a case-by-case basis. However, consideration is given to the following factors:
What types of conduct are considered racial harassment?
Many kinds of conduct that are of a racial nature may be racial harassment, if the behavior is unwelcome and if it is severe or pervasive. However, courts have resisted adopting what they consider a workplace "code of conduct" or list of behavior that is automatically considered to be racial harassment. As a result, if the conduct is not unwelcome or not severe or pervasive, courts will not necessarily consider each type of conduct listed below to be racial harassment.
Additionally, petty slights, annoyances, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not rise to the level of being unlawful.
Some examples of conduct that may be racial harassment include: