Colorado Senate President Announces Initiative to 'Prevent Sexual Harassment'

Today, President Grantham launched the following new sexual harassment prevention initiative:

“While we have a comprehensive awareness training and reporting system in place, recent events show that we can and should do better,” Grantham said.

“We have a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment, but welcome the opportunity to improve upon our procedures. I propose to my colleagues the following 5-part improvement plan to increase access to information and ease reporting processes."

  1. Sexual harassment trainings from our provider Mountain States Employers Council or another credible group will be increased from biannually to annually. All legislators and staff will be expected to attend every year.
  2. The scope and duration of these trainings is to be increased, to allow for the most current and comprehensive training available.
  3. Out of respect for the difficulty victims can face when choosing to speak out, we will create an online or email reporting system in addition to our existing confidential reporting procedures.
  4. We will publish resources for preventing and reporting sexual harassment more prominently on the legislature’s website and on our Capitol information boards.
  5. We will create a study committee to continue researching and implementing strategies to improve our sexual harassment training and reporting processes.

“We take the issue of sexual harassment very seriously and hope that these proposed expansions will make all members of our Capitol community feel safe and respected both inside and outside of the Capitol.”

"If you wish to report an instance of sexual harassment in the Senate - under the existing policy - you may file a report with myself or my opposite gender designee Senator Beth Martinez Humenik.”