Indianapolis Employment Law Blog

When many employees think of discrimination or harassment in the workplace, they think of blatant, obvious comments, actions or behaviors. However, workplace discrimination or harassment does not always take the form of an obviously inappropriate action.

According to a 2018 study, 64 percent of women across the country endured “microaggressions” in the workplace, or gender-based subtle discriminatory actions. Subtle forms of discrimination can be very damaging but more difficult to recognize. Additionally, it can be challenging to know what, if anything, to do about it.

The unfortunate reality, which has become more clear in recent years, is that workplace sexual harassment seems to be common in almost every single industry. If you thought there was a stereotypical industry that contained most harassment cases or that there were "safe" industries where that sort of thing did not happen, you're probably wrong. It can and does happen anywhere.

To really underscore this point, recent reports show just how common harassment is in the medical community. About four percent of male doctors and medical professionals claimed they had faced harassment in just the last three years. It's even higher for female medical workers, coming in right around 10 percent. Again, that's just in the last few years, so the percentages are likely higher if you consider harassment over the course of an entire career.

Text messages are often used as evidence in sexual harassment cases. A lot of harassment happens virtually these days, whether that means sending pictures or written messages.

But there's one other component to consider: The emoji. This small symbol, meant to quickly express an emotion, could play a huge role in a case.

An Indiana state representative who says that she was the victim of sexual harassment has introduced four bills aimed at holding state officials and lawmakers accountable for such behavior. Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon of Munster is one of the women who has accused Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill of inappropriate behavior. Another one of his accusers works in the Indiana Senate.

One of the bills would make lewd touching a felony instead of a misdemeanor if it involves things like drugging a victim, threatening or using deadly force or if the assailant is a state lawmaker or other office holder.