A Washington Post article published on October 1, 2023 examines 290 complaints of sexual harassment filed by DC employees from December 2017 through June 2023. The complaints were all investigated under a sexual harassment policy that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser implemented in 2017. The Washington Post’s investigation found that just under 30% of the complaints were substantiated in full or in part. About 40% were unsubstantiated or inconclusive. In some unsubstantiated or inconclusive cases, investigators found that the conduct did take place, but it did not rise to the level of sexual harassment.
For many employment attorneys who reviewed the 290 cases, these findings are evidence of an issue with the standard outlined in Mayor Bowser’s 2017 policy, which required that sexual harassment had to be “severe and pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment.” Some attorneys argued that judgement calls about whether sexual harassment met this standard led to inconsistent enforcement.
A new DC law, which took effect in September 2023, eliminated the “severe and pervasive” standard in Mayor Bowser’s 2017 policy. Under this new law, no level of egregiousness or specific number of incidents are required to constitute harassment. Attorneys who commented for the Washington Post article hoped the new law would have a positive impact, noting that the previous standard was notoriously difficult to prove. Correia & Puth’s Lauren A. Khouri noted, “The law needed to change because not everybody agreed with the interpretation of what ‘severe or pervasive,’ meant; it was different for different people.”
