Looking Back At Men Sexually Harassing Other Men

According to the EEOC the filing of male sexual harassment charges has steadily multiplied over the past ten years from 12% to 16%. In 2009 the complaints filed by men totaled over 2,000, out of around 12,700 sexual harassment cases. Workplace sexual predators do not discriminate against men. I would not leave any sexual harasser alone with children.

In its lawsuit (EEOC v. Cheesecake Factory, Inc., CV 08-1207-PHX-NVW), the EEOC charged that Cheesecake knew about and tolerated repeated sexual assaults against six male employees by a group of male kitchen staffers. The company denied the allegations. However, according to the agency, the evidence overwhelmingly showed that the men suffered sexually abusive behavior, including abusers directly touching victims’ genitals, making sexually charged remarks, grinding their genitals against them, and forcing victims into repeated episodes of simulated rape. Managers witnessed employees dragging their victims kicking and screaming into the refrigerator, the EEOC charged.

According to the EEOC’s suit, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Dillard’s permitted a sexually hostile work environment for men at its Fashion Square Mall store in Orlando, Fla. The EEOC charged that a male supervisor engaged in verbal and physical sexual harassment of a male sales associate and a young dockworker when the supervisor exposed himself, propositioned the men, and made sexually explicit and derogatory comments. The EEOC said that Dillard’s ignored complaints about the harasser.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Long Prairie Packing Company, Inc. (LPP) announced today that they have reached a voluntary $1.9 million settlement that resolves all claims in an EEOC lawsuit filed on behalf of a class of current and former LPP male employees who were alleged to have been subjected to a pattern and practice of sexual harassment.

EEOC's lawsuit, filed on September 28, 1999, charged Burt Chevrolet with creating a hostile work environment for male employees. According to the suit, a group of salesmen were subjected to severe and repeated sexual harassment by male managers. The unlawful conduct included the touching and grabbing of genitals, pelvic thrusting on the buttocks of male employees, exposing of a manager's penis in the workplace, crude sexual language, crude sexual jokes, and referring to male employees in sexually obscene and derogatory terms.

The suit, EEOC v. Kraft Foods North America, Inc., filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division, charges Kraft with creating a sexually hostile work environment for male employees and retaliating against them for complaining about the harassment. In particular, the suit alleges that male employees were the subject of sexual comments, were propositioned for sex, were touched and grabbed, and were sexually assaulted by a Nabisco male supervisor.

According to the EEOC’s suit, some of the owners and managers of M. Slavin & Sons subjected male employees, particularly black employees, including both black Americans and at least one immigrant from Africa, to ongoing harassment. The misconduct included groping their buttocks, putting fish hooks into their buttocks and unnecessarily rubbing their bodies into the employees when passing them by. The owners and managers also made numerous crude, obscene sexual and/or racist comments. One owner used the term “n----r” and another manager made comments such as “African b-----d” and “Let me see you run like you are in Africa.”

The EEOC's lawsuit, EEOC v. Pand Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a McDonald's Restaurant, Civil Action No. 05-CIV-204, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, claims that a class of young men were subjected to same-sex harassment by a male supervisor, including unwanted touching, requests for sex and sexual remarks. The lawsuit further claims that one young male employee's work hours were cut in retaliation for opposing the sexual harassment.

The EEOC charged in its lawsuit that Hill Brothers discriminated against Scott Beasley, Joel Graves and Douglas Smith in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by subjecting them to a sexually hostile work environment. After a week-long trial, the jury awarded $75,000 each to Beasley, Graves and Smith as punitive damages in the case, which was presided over by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills. Beasley was also represented by private counsel.

In EEOC vs Ron Clark Ford, Inc., the evidence gathered during the Commission's investigation showed that the men were subjected to lewd, inappropriate comments of a sexual nature and had their genitals and buttocks grabbed against their will by males managers. The dealership argued that the sexual conduct was "harmless horseplay" - a position that was contradicted by the evidence uncovered in the EEOC's investigation. The Commission filed suit after finding that discrimination took place and exhausting its conciliation efforts to reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement.

The three-year consent decree settling the suit requires United HealthCare of Florida to pay $1.8 million to the former employee in back pay, damages, and his private attorneys’ fees and costs. United HealthCare must also distribute a new anti-harassment policy to all of its employees in Florida; train all its employees (including managers) at the Sunrise facility on federal employment dis­crimination laws including sexual harassment and retaliation; post a notice of resolution of the lawsuit; and report to EEOC twice annually about any harassment or retaliation complaints based on harassment, and the actions taken by United HealthCare to resolve such complaints.

Hotel giant WorldMark by Wyndham will pay $370,000 and furnish significant remedial relief to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged that the company failed to stop the manager of its Birch Bay Resort in Blaine, Wash., from sexually harassing young male employees.

According to the EEOC’s investigation, the resort manager, male and in his 40s, repeatedly subjected young male employees between the ages of 17 and 25 to unwelcome touching of a sexual nature, comments about their physical appearance, and sexually charged situations.

One of the former employees said, “I was humiliated by what was happening to me at work -- everyone knew and many people just laughed about it. It was really hard to talk about what happened to me, reporting it to the EEOC, but it was worth it. At least now I know it’s not going to happen again to another teenager.”

See, Same-sex