Disability Harassment

The workplace should be a productive environment where people of diverse backgrounds, personalities, and characteristics work in harmony. Workers of any particular workplace are hired based on their skills and qualifications. The law specifically prohibits the denial of a job to a prospective employee solely because of his or her race, age, gender, or other characteristics. Furthermore, harassment in the workplace based on these characteristics is also not tolerated. But more often than not, people tend to harass co-workers on the basis of their background. Sometimes even the very policies of the workplace may be discriminating for a particular person. Among these cases is the disability harassment.

Definition

People with disabilities are those that may either be physically or mentally impaired. Generally, as long as they can satisfy the job qualifications and their disabilities will not hinder them from doing the job, they are entitled to apply and be hired for a particular position. But sometimes at work, some employees may play a joke at the disabled person because of his or her condition. Such situations are considered as disability harassment and should not be tolerated by the management. These include offensive remarks to people regarding their disabilities.

Dealing with disability harassment

Disability harassment is not tolerated by the law. Any particular workplace, as an example, should be accessible to people with disabilities. A person with disability also has the right to ask for a more comfortable workstation if he or she deems it necessary. For example, a person with disability who uses a wheelchair has the right to ask the employer to reserve the parking space closest to the door so he or she can easily get to the door.