Following the lead of several other states, effective July 1, 2022, the city of Chicago will be implementing changes to its existing sexual harassment laws. The changes consist of six key components that seek to educate workers and strengthen worker protections when it comes to sexual harassment.
The first component of the new law enhances the definition of sexual harassment to explicitly include sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct is defined as “any behavior of a sexual nature which also involves coercion, abuse of authority, or misuse of an individual’s employment position.” This definition change took effect on June 4, 2022.