UWLP Blog - Sexual Harassment

The Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) at Utah State University has released a groundbreaking white paper, The Roots of Sexual Violence in Utah: A Framework for Understanding Harm, offering the most comprehensive synthesis to date of why sexual violence remains pervasive in the state and what cultural, structural, and attitudinal factors allow it to persist.

This report highlights key research areas, including political and civic engagement, education, health and well-being, safety and security, and the workplace.

Utah Women & Leadership Project has released the third of five white papers that share the results of a comprehensive statewide study conducted in the fall of 2025.

Utah Women & Leadership Project has released the first of five white papers that share the results of a comprehensive statewide study conducted in the fall of 2025.

Utah Women & Leadership Project has released the final white paper, which shares the results of a comprehensive statewide study conducted in the fall of 2024.

Utah Women & Leadership Project has released the first of six white papers that share the results of a comprehensive statewide study conducted in the fall of 2024.

Utah's sex-based discrimination (which includes sexual harassment) make up a larger share of the complaints filed with the U.S. EEOC. Only three states have higher complaints than Utah.

Read our blog or watch the full recording of our second Fall Women’s Leadership Forum about sexism in Utah.

Did you miss this Fall forum? Don't worry! You can read about it and watch the full recording here.

Tragically, workplace sexual harassment continues to happen today and is vastly under-reported. This harassment causes extensive harms to the individuals harassed, the vast majority of whom are women.

As sexist comments are pervasive, and appropriate responses elusive, this research study was designed with the intent of collecting and analyzing a wide variety of sexist comments experienced by women across the state of Utah, in addition to the responses women made (or wish they had made) to such comments.

Women who reported sexual harassment, the "silence breakers," were chosen by time magazine as the person of the year for 2017. Although workplace sexual harassment has likely been around since the conception of workplaces, and sexual harassment has been illegal in the U.S. for decades.

Nearly one in two women in the U.S. will experience some form of sexual violence victimization in her lifetime (broadly defined), and Utah has the same overall rate. According to the most recent Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice report, when considering more specific definitions.