Sexual harassment takes two legally distinct forms. Quid pro quo harassment occurs when a supervisor or person with authority conditions a job benefit — hire, promotion, raise, favorable assignment — on submission to sexual conduct, or threatens adverse action for refusal. A single quid pro quo incident is sufficient to establish a claim. Hostile work environment sexual harassment occurs when unwelcome sexual conduct — comments, jokes, advances, touching, images, messages — is severe or pervasive enough to alter working conditions.

Under the IHRA, sexual harassment covers all employers with 1 or more employees. Under Title VII, the threshold is 15 employees. The Workplace Transparency Act requires all Illinois employers to provide annual sexual harassment training — and the training model must meet IDHR standards. An employer who failed to train is in a significantly weaker position defending a harassment claim.

Illinois also provides protections specific to restaurants, bars, hotels, and casinos under the Hotel and Casino Employee Safety Act, which requires employers to provide panic buttons and take specific protective measures against harassment by guests and third parties.

A hostile work environment claim requires conduct that is (1) unwelcome, (2) based on a protected characteristic, (3) severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment, and (4) attributable to the employer — either because a supervisor committed the harassment, or because the employer knew or should have known about coworker harassment and failed to take prompt and effective corrective action.

Courts evaluate severity and pervasiveness by looking at the totality of the circumstances: the frequency of the conduct, its severity, whether it was physically threatening or humiliating (versus merely offensive), and whether it unreasonably interfered with your work performance. A single racial slur by a supervisor may be sufficient. Ongoing “jokes” and comments that individually seem minor can constitute a hostile environment when viewed together over time.

Important: the legal standard is both subjective and objective — you must have personally found the environment hostile, and a reasonable person in your position would also have found it hostile. We evaluate your specific circumstances to determine whether the legal threshold is met — and help you understand what is actionable versus what, unfortunately, the law does not currently reach.

Racial harassment includes slurs, epithets, stereotyping comments, offensive jokes, display of racially offensive symbols or images, and exclusion from meetings, assignments, or social activities based on race, color, national origin, or ethnicity. It also includes harassment based on perceived race or ethnicity under the IHRA — your employer does not need to be correct about your background.

Racial harassment can come from supervisors, coworkers, subordinates, or even clients and vendors — and the employer can be liable if it knew or should have known about the conduct and failed to act. Under the IHRA, employers are also liable for harassment that affects contractors, consultants, and nonemployees in the work environment.

We handle racial harassment claims under Title VII, Section 1981 (which provides additional remedies for race-based claims including uncapped compensatory and punitive damages with no employer-size requirement), and the IHRA. Section 1981 is particularly powerful because it has a 4-year statute of limitations and no administrative exhaustion requirement — you can file directly in federal court.

Age harassment targets employees 40 and older through comments like “dinosaur,” “old school,” “when are you retiring,” exclusion from technology initiatives, removal from client-facing roles, and systematic marginalization designed to push older workers out. Under the ADEA and IHRA, age-based harassment that is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment is unlawful.

Disability harassment includes mocking a disability or medical condition, making comments about an employee’s physical or mental limitations, punishing employees for using medical leave or requesting accommodations, isolating employees after they disclose a disability, and creating an environment that discourages accommodation requests. The ADA and IHRA both prohibit disability-based harassment — and the IHRA’s broader definition of disability covers conditions that may not qualify under federal law.

These claims are often combined with discrimination claims — harassment that culminates in termination creates overlapping hostile environment and discriminatory termination theories, which significantly strengthens your position.

Harassment based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is prohibited under both Title VII (following Bostock v. Clayton County, 2020) and the IHRA (which has protected these classes since 2006). This includes anti-LGBTQ+ slurs or jokes, deliberate misgendering or refusal to use correct pronouns as a form of harassment, outing or threatening to out an employee, exclusion or differential treatment based on orientation or identity, and hostile conduct by coworkers that the employer fails to address.

Because the IHRA applies to all employers with 1 or more employees, Illinois LGBTQ+ employees have protection even when working for employers too small to be covered by Title VII’s 15-employee threshold.

Religious harassment includes ridiculing religious practices, pressuring employees to participate in (or abstain from) religious activities, making hostile comments about religious attire or observances, and creating an environment where employees of a particular faith are marginalized or excluded. It also includes harassment based on lack of religious belief — targeting atheist or agnostic employees.

Under both Title VII and the IHRA, employers must not only refrain from harassment but also take prompt action to stop religious harassment by coworkers, supervisors, or third parties. The duty to act applies when the employer knew or should have known about the conduct.

Retaliation is the most commonly filed charge with the EEOC. When you report harassment — internally to HR, to the EEOC, to the IDHR, or to a supervisor — you are engaging in protected activity. Any adverse action your employer takes in response (termination, demotion, schedule changes, reassignment, isolation, negative performance reviews, or even subtle conduct like being excluded from meetings) can constitute unlawful retaliation.

Retaliation is independently unlawful — you can win a retaliation claim even if the underlying harassment claim is not ultimately proven. The key elements are: (1) you engaged in protected activity, (2) you suffered an adverse action, and (3) there is a causal connection between them. Temporal proximity — adverse action shortly after your complaint — is powerful evidence.

For more on retaliation protections, including whistleblower statutes, see our Retaliation & Whistleblower Protection page.

When an employee reports harassment, the employer has a legal obligation to promptly investigate and take effective corrective action. Under the Faragher-Ellerth defense framework, employers can avoid vicarious liability for supervisor harassment only if they can show they exercised reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct harassment, and the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of preventive or corrective opportunities. If the employer has no policy, no training, no complaint procedure, or failed to investigate — that defense is unavailable.

Under the Workplace Transparency Act, Illinois employers must provide annual sexual harassment training, report harassment settlements to the IDHR, and cannot use non-disclosure or non-disparagement clauses to silence harassment victims (with limited exceptions). An employer that failed to comply with these obligations is in a significantly weaker position defending your claim.

We conduct workplace investigations for employers — so we know exactly what a proper investigation looks like and can identify where your employer’s investigation was deficient, biased, or designed to protect the company rather than find the truth.