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Well done to Rob McCreath for his 15:01 post. Citing a key part of the Equality Act limit on what amounts to harassment. Something missing from all media reporting, this article, recent new ACAS guidance and many law firm articles in recent weeks. It's sometimes summarised as hypersensitivity: someone taking unreasonable offence is not protected. Hugely relevant given a) the risk of this whole debate overreaching beyond the reprehensible into innocuous conduct; and 2) today's society where different people's level of taking offence varies hugely.
Also critical to bear in mind the other fundamental limit on harassment, as the CA put it in HM Land Registry v Grant 2011 "Furthermore, even if .[.......], and the claimant was upset by it, the effect cannot amount to a violation of dignity, nor can it properly be described as creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Tribunals must not cheapen the significance of these words. They are an important control to prevent trivial acts causing minor upsets being caught by the concept of harassment. The claimant was no doubt upset [......] but that is far from attracting the epithets required to constitute harassment. In my view, to describe this incident as the Tribunal did as subjecting the claimant to a "humiliating environment" [.....] is a distortion of language which brings discrimination law into disrepute." Whilst Grant was specific facts, harassment and discrimination are serious allegations, not just for the person complaining but also for the alleged perpetrator and employer. Treating it seriously cuts both ways.