Federal employees, by law, are entitled to receive fair and equitable treatment in employment without regard to their sex, among other things. In addition, any federal employee who has the authority to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action is prohibited from discriminating for or against any employees or applicants for employment on the basis of their sex. These rights are set forth in title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued regulations recognizing sexual harassment as an unlawful employment practice. Subsequent case law clarified that unlawful sexual harassment exists when unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature are committed as a condition of employment or basis for employment action (“quid pro quo”), or when this conduct creates a hostile work environment. A key word is “unwelcome,” because unlawful sexual harassment may exist when the target perceives that he or she is being harassed, whether or not the perpetrator intended to create a hostile environment. EEOC has the authority to enforce federal sector antidiscrimination laws, issuing rules and regulations as it deems necessary to carry out its responsibilities. It issued revised guidelines for processing EEO complaints, including sexual harassment, that became effective in October 1992. NIH is one of several Public Health Service agencies within HHS and is the principal biomedical research agency of the federal government. It supports biomedical and behavioral research domestically and abroad, conducts research in its own laboratories and clinics, trains researchers, and promotes the acquisition and distribution of medical knowledge. NIH is made up of 26 ICDs, each of which has its own director and management staff. Its 13,000 employees are primarily located in the Bethesda, Maryland, area. Our objective was to obtain information on the extent and nature of sexual harassment and sex discrimination at NIH, to provide a systematic overview of an issue that had received media attention based on individual allegations. To accomplish this, we reviewed sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints filed by NIH employees and conducted a projectable survey of NIH employees. We also interviewed agency officials at NIH, the Public Health Service, and HHS involved with handling such situations in order to familiarize ourselves with EEO-related activities. We obtained statistics on formal sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints that were filed between October 1, 1990, and May 31, 1994, and reviewed those complaints filed during this period and subsequently closed. We also reviewed 20 complaints that were handled as part of NIH’s expedited sexual harassment process between September 1, 1992, and May 31, 1994. Under this accelerated procedure, officials from the involved ICD were required to immediately advise OEO officials about any sexual harassment allegations that came to their attention. OEO was then required to complete its inquiry within 2 weeks. NIH’s EEO complaint process is outlined in greater detail in appendix I. We did not compare the number and type of complaints filed by NIH employees with those filed by employees at other governmental institutions. To obtain an agencywide perspective on the sexual harassment and sex discrimination environment at NIH, we sent questionnaires to a stratified random sample of 4,110 persons who were NIH employees as of the end of fiscal year 1993. We asked these employees for their insights, opinions, and observations (anonymously) about sexual harassment and sex discrimination at NIH as well as their opinions about NIH’s EEO system. The results of our survey, which can be projected to the universe from which it was selected, are shown in their entirety in appendix II. The overall usable response rate was 64.3 percent. The percentages presented in this report are based on the number of NIH employees who responded to the particular question being discussed. Because the survey results come from a sample of NIH employees, all results are subject to sampling errors. For example, the estimate that 32 percent of the employees have experienced sexual harassment is surrounded by a 95 percent confidence interval from 30 to 34 percent. All of the survey results in this report have 95 percent confidence intervals of less than + 5 percent unless otherwise noted. All reported comparisons of female and male responses are statistically significant unless otherwise noted. It should be noted that our questionnaire methodology, which is described in greater detail in appendix III, did not include comparing NIH with other governmental institutions. We also contacted agency officials at NIH, the Public Health Service, and HHS to obtain estimated costs associated with processing sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints. Information regarding the limited data that were available is covered in appendix IV. Our work was done at NIH’s Bethesda, Maryland, location from May 1993 to May 1995, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We requested comments from the Secretary, HHS; the Assistant Secretary for Health, HHS; and the Director, NIH on a draft of this report. Their consolidated comments are discussed on p. 16 and presented in appendix V. Approximately 32 percent of NIH employees reported that they were the recipients of some type of uninvited, unwanted sexual attention in the past year, and employees filed 32 informal complaints and 20 formal complaints with NIH’s OEO between October 1990 and May 1994. These complaints were filed primarily by female employees. Closed formal complaints we reviewed overwhelmingly identified immediate supervisors and/or management officials as the alleged harassers. However, employees in general did not consider these groups to be the only sources of sexual harassment at NIH. Coworkers and contractors were also identified as alleged harassers. Actions reportedly taken most often by sexually harassed employees to deal with their situations included ignoring the situation or doing nothing, avoiding the harasser, asking/telling the harasser to stop the offensive behavior, discussing the situation with a coworker and/or asking the coworker to help, or making a joke of the situation. Over 96 percent of NIH employees who said they were sexually harassed reported that they decided not to file complaints or take some other personnel action. Some of the more prevalent reasons employees gave for choosing not to file EEO complaints, grievances, or adverse action appeals were that (1) they did not consider the incident to be serious enough, (2) they wanted to deal with it themselves, and/or (3) they decided to ignore the incident. Also, some of the employees who chose not to file complaints believed the situation would not be kept confidential, the harasser would not be punished, filing a complaint would not be worth the time or cost, and/or that they would be retaliated against. Although it remains small as a proportion of the workforce, the number of EEO complaints filed by NIH employees alleging sexual harassment has increased in recent years. Of the 20 formal complaints filed between October 1, 1990, and May 31, 1994, none were filed in fiscal year 1991; 4 and 7 were filed in fiscal years 1992 and 1993, respectively; and 9 were filed during the first 8 months of fiscal year 1994. Although 53 percent of employees reported they thought NIH did a somewhat good to very good job taking action against employees who engage in sexual harassment, about 27 percent of employees reported they thought NIH did a somewhat poor to very poor job. (See app. II, p. 31.) Our review of sexual harassment complaint files and statistics showed that no determinations or findings of sexual harassment had been made on formal EEO complaints filed by NIH employees that were closed between October 1991 and May 1994. It should be noted, however, that actions could be and have been taken against alleged harassers without a formal admission that harassment actually occurred. For the most part, employees reported they believed NIH was doing a good job of informing them about the nature of sexual harassment, the policies and procedures prohibiting it, and the penalties for those who engage in sexual harassment. NIH also got good reviews from its employees for encouraging them to contact ICD EEO officers and/or OEO regarding any sexual harassment concerns. Only 5.5 percent of employees viewed sexual harassment to be more of a problem at NIH than it was a year earlier, and 34.5 percent of the employees did not perceive sexual harassment to be a problem at all at NIH. However, many employees perceived NIH as doing a poor job of counseling victims of sexual harassment (20.8 percent), preventing reprisal/retaliation for reporting sexual harassment (22.2 percent), and taking action against those who harassed others (26.9 percent). With regard to their respective ICDs, 2.3 percent of the employees believed the problem had become more serious while 52.2 percent of employees did not consider sexual harassment to be a problem at their ICDs. (See table 1.) Two-thirds of the employees—67.1 percent—believed enough was being done by NIH to eliminate sexual harassment. This sentiment was echoed by 72.3 percent of employees about their respective ICDs and 74.7 percent of employees about their immediate supervisors. (See app. II, p. 23.) Women reported being harassed more often than men (37.7 percent compared to 23.8 percent), and women employees at NIH perceived sexual harassment to be a more serious problem than did men (21.3 percent compared to 8.2 percent). Male and female employees who said they experienced sexual harassment indicated that most of the uninvited, unwanted sexual attention consisted of gossip regarding people’s sexual behavior; sexual jokes, remarks, and teasing; and negative sexual remarks about a group (e.g., women, men, homosexuals). For the most part, employees reported that it was instigated by coworkers, supervisors, and/or contractors who worked on the NIH campus.