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Sexual Harassment Is Not A Crime: Aligning The Uniform Code Of Military Justice With Title Vii, Laura T. Kessler, Sagen Gearhart
Sexual Harassment Is Not A Crime: Aligning The Uniform Code Of Military Justice With Title Vii, Laura T. Kessler, Sagen Gearhart
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Sexual harassment and sexual assault are ongoing problems in the military. The Department of Defense responded in 2019 with sweeping changes in how the military handles sexual misconduct, including a proposal to criminalize sexual harassment in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). This Article, co-authored by an expert on workplace sex discrimination and a former military officer, responds to this proposal. We argue that sexual harassment, however reprehensible, is not criminal conduct. Moreover, criminalization is likely to undermine the military’s efforts to prevent and punish sexual harassment by raising the stakes for the involved service members, thereby deterring reporting, …