June 2000

To the Editor:

I just finished reading Jonathan Wexler's article regarding sexual harassment in the April issue of The Trusted Professional. It was very informative.

However, I would like to correct one item Mr. Wexler noted. He stated that "[b]ecause Title VII and the other civil rights statutes prohibit harassment based on all protected characteristics and categories, employers must have policies that expressly prohibit harassment on any protected basis, such as race, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation." Unfortunately, and to my dismay, I must correct the fact that our enlightened society still has not passed laws or civil rights statutes protecting persons based on sexual orientation. To this very day, most of our country does not include sexual orientation as a protected category, although a handful of states and cities do include us.

Be that as it may (and we all pray that it won't be very long until the rest of the country ends its discrimination), I believe that we must act at the local levels and in the private sector. Therefore, I urge all employers, along with Mr. Wexler, to include such language in their employment policies. They will then be that far ahead of the country at the time it finally wakes up and treats all its citizens equally.

Thank you for allowing me to inform the readership.

ROBERT CORSENTINO, CPA

Editor's Note: While no federal statute makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and Wexler points out that his column does not say so, at least 12 states and many cities prohibit such discrimination in their civil rights laws. Wexler advises employers to include sexual orientation in their antiharassment policies both in recognition of the growing number of states and cities--including New York City--that have such statutes, and because many companies recognize that such fair treatment is consistent with their corporate culture. *