| Today, the rights of sexual harassment victims are clear and
protected. The rights of those accused of sexual harassment are less
defined. After millions of dollars in lawsuits filed by victims over
the last ten years, it is much less risky for employers to quickly err
on the side of the victim and terminate the accused.
In 2006, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
received 12,500 sexual harassment charges. 5,668 of them were settled
for “no reasonable cause.” The majority of
these complaints (including those settled for no reasonable cause) coincided with a termination of the accused.
It’s important to note that relatively few complaints filed
within a company ever become official charges with the EEOC. Some estimate the number of people fired for sexual
harassment each year to be as high as 50,000. |
