Serienya wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
No, that isn't how most sexual harassment policies work. What they actually say is, if a reasonable person (or something generally synonymous) would feel harassed by what you actually did or said. Your officemate cannot simply claim you did something you didn't do and claim they were harrassed by your fictitious behavior, nor can they claim that something obviously not sexual harrassment is, just because they say so.
Our policy is based on whether or not the person felt harassed or uncomfortable (even if nothing was directed at them); there isn't a "reasonable person" standard on paper. Maybe in practice...
Then your policy is all **** up and unuseable.. or people are simply
saying it's however the person feels and the actual written policy is that it's a reasonable person. I don't think a policy that simply treats the stated feelings of the "harrassed" person as the standard is legally enforceable.
Lots of people
think their policies are based on the feelings of the accuser. This is especially true in the military; most Soldiers think all someone has to do is claim sexual harrassment and its automatically true because
they felt harrassed. The actual policy does not work that way, however, but Soldiers persist in believing it does
In fact the policy is designed that way because on a good 50% of the cases the supposedly-harrassed person was accepting, encouraging, or even participating int he behavior themselves and then something happened (usually they got in trouble for something unrelated, or their behavior was sending signals they didn't intend and someone responded in kind, or someone else passed over some personal "line" they have, or some soldier they just didn't like as much got involved) and the case gets tossed out on its ear.
If you don't have that kind of protection for the accused, your policy is unfair and worthless.
The reasonable person is implied, you do not need to explicitly state it in your policy. 95% of liability claims rely on the reasonable person clause which is why the jury-system exists.
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