Tennessee Workplace Harassment Laws: 8-Employee Rule, 2025 Rewrite

Workplace harassment is unlawful in Tennessee when it is discrimination because of a protected trait: the Tennessee Human Rights Act makes it a discriminatory practice for an employer "to discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual's race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin" (Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-401(a)(1)). The Act's employment part has no separate harassment clause, and it applies to a person employing eight or more individuals within Tennessee (§ 4-21-102(8)).

The legislature rewrote the Act in 2025 (Public Chapter 471). The Tennessee Human Rights Commission ceased to exist at the end of June 2025, complaints now go to the Attorney General's Civil Rights Enforcement Division (CRED) within 180 days, an employee may sue directly within one year after the practice ceases, and the Act continues to state that an individual employee or agent is not liable for a violation the employer is found to have committed. For other states, see workplace harassment laws by state.

Information last verified on 2026-10-20. This article has not been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers Tennessee state law on workplace harassment by employers, supervisors and coworkers under the Tennessee Human Rights Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-101 et seq., as rewritten by 2025 Public Chapter 471 (chiefly §§ 4-21-102, 4-21-204, 4-21-301, 4-21-311, 4-21-401 and 4-21-407), the Tennessee Disability Act (§ 8-50-103), § 50-1-108 and the Healthy Workplace Act (§§ 50-1-501 to 50-1-504). It does not cover wrongful firing or the full complaint and lawsuit procedure (see Tennessee wrongful termination), damages estimates, criminal harassment or stalking, harassment outside employment, or federal-employee procedure.

Tennessee harassment rules at a glance

What Tennessee law prohibits

The Human Rights Act does not define harassment and has no harassment clause in its employment part. The operative provision is § 4-21-401(a):

"(a) It is a discriminatory practice in violation of this chapter for an employer to: (1) Fail or refuse to hire or discharge a person or otherwise to discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual's race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin; or (2) Limit, segregate, or classify an employee or applicants for employment to deprive or tend to deprive an individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect the status of an employee, because of race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin." (Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-401(a), as enacted by 2025 Pub. Ch. 471)

The Act's first stated purpose, kept in the 2025 rewrite, is to "[p]rovide for execution within this state of the policies embodied in the federal Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1968, and 1972," along with the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (§ 4-21-101(1)).

The hostile work environment standard in Tennessee

The Act contains no statutory test for when harassment becomes unlawful. The Tennessee Supreme Court, in Carr v. United Parcel Service, 955 S.W.2d 832 (Tenn. 1997), a sexual harassment case decided under the earlier version of the Act, acknowledged that the wording of Title VII and the state Act differs slightly and said "it is clear that the legislature intended the THRA to be coextensive with federal law."

Carr listed the elements of a coworker harassment claim. A plaintiff "must assert and prove: (1) the employee was a member of a protected class; (2) the employee was subjected to unwelcomed sexual harassment; (3) the harassment occurred because of the employee's gender; (4) the harassment affected a 'term, condition or privilege' of employment; and (5) the employer knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to respond with prompt and appropriate corrective action." The 2025 text keeps the "terms, conditions, or privileges" language that Carr construed. How the federal courts measure a hostile environment is covered on the workplace harassment laws hub.

Which Tennessee employers are covered

Section 4-21-102(8) defines "employer" as "a person employing eight (8) or more individuals within this state, or a person acting as an agent of an employer, directly or indirectly." The Act has no separate, lower threshold for harassment; the eight-person line applies to every ground in § 4-21-401.

Some employment is outside the Act. Section 4-21-401(b) states that the section "does not apply to the employment of an individual by the individual's parent, spouse, or child, or to employment in the domestic service of the employer." Separately, § 4-21-405 provides that the chapter "does not apply to religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, or societies, with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with" their religious activities.

Disability claims run through the Tennessee Disability Act. For that section, "'employer' means a person employing eight (8) or more persons within the state," and "a violation of this section is a violation of title 4, chapter 21" (§ 8-50-103(d), (e)).

Protected traits under the Tennessee Human Rights Act

Section 4-21-401(a) protects against discrimination because of:

• Race and color
• Creed and religion
• Sex (§ 4-21-102(24) adopts § 1-3-105, which defines "sex" as "a person's immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth and evidence of a person's biological sex")
• Age, limited by § 4-21-407(b) to "individuals who are at least forty (40) years of age"
• National origin

Disability is protected through the Tennessee Disability Act, § 8-50-103, described above. Section 4-21-401 does not list sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, genetic information, or hair texture and protective hairstyles.

Employer responsibility and individual liability

For harassment by coworkers, Carr held that "an employer's liability for a hostile work environment created by non-supervisory employees (co-workers) is based on a theory of negligence and not respondeat superior," which is why the fifth element above asks whether the employer knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to respond with prompt and appropriate corrective action. Carr construed the Act as it read in 1997.

For harassment by a supervisor, the Tennessee Supreme Court in Parker v. Warren County Utility District, 2 S.W.3d 170 (Tenn. 1999), adopted the federal standard: "We hold that, under the THRA, an employer is subject to vicarious liability to a victimized employee for actionable hostile work environment sexual harassment by a supervisor with immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee. The defending employer may raise an affirmative defense to liability or damages when no tangible employment action has been taken."

The statute answers the individual-liability question. Since 2014 Public Chapter 995 (effective July 1, 2014, for actions accruing on or after that date), the Act has said that "[n]o individual employee or agent of an employer shall be liable for any violation of part 4 of this chapter that any employer shall be found to have committed," and that act removed the former clause making it a discriminatory practice to aid or abet discrimination. The 2025 rewrite keeps the rule in § 4-21-401(e): "An individual employee or agent of an employer is not liable for a civil violation of this part that an employer is found to have committed." It added a matching sentence for retaliation: "An individual employee or agent of an employer is not liable for a violation of this section that an employer is found to have committed" (§ 4-21-301(b)).

Under the earlier version of the Act, Carr held "that the THRA's 'agent of an employer' language does not impose individual liability," but it also found, under the aiding-and-abetting clause that the 2014 act later removed, "that an individual who aids, abets, incites, compels, or commands an employer to engage in employment-related discrimination has violated the THRA."

Retaliation for complaining

Section 4-21-301(a) makes it a violation "for a person to retaliate or discriminate against another person because such person has opposed a discriminatory practice in violation of this chapter or because such person has made a charge, filed a complaint, testified, assisted or participated in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter." How a firing after a complaint fits with Tennessee's default employment rule is covered on the Tennessee at-will employment page.

Deadlines and where to file

Public Chapter 471 states that the Tennessee Human Rights Commission "terminates and ceases to exist at the end of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025." The Attorney General's Civil Rights Enforcement Division now takes complaints under the Act.

• CRED complaint: "All complaints made to the division must be filed within one hundred eighty (180) days after the commission of the alleged discriminatory practice" (§ 4-21-204(e)). CRED's own complaint page repeats the 180-day limit.
• Lawsuit: the Act gives a private right of action, and a suit "must be filed in chancery court or circuit court within one (1) year after the alleged discriminatory practice ceases" (§ 4-21-311(d)).
• No exhaustion, no extension: CRED states, "You are not required to file a complaint with CRED before filing your own lawsuit under the THRA or TDA. However, please also note that filing a complaint with CRED does not extend the one-year statute of limitations for filing your own lawsuit under the THRA or TDA."
• State and federal suits at once: under § 4-21-313, an employee "shall not concurrently maintain a cause of action in state court under § 4-21-401" while "at the same time prosecuting an action in federal court based on a common nucleus of operative facts," and on the employer's motion the state court "shall dismiss" the state action.
• Federal charge: federal Title VII applies to employers with 15 or more employees (42 U.S.C. 2000e(b)). The EEOC's Nashville office, which lists the Attorney General's Civil Rights Enforcement Division as its state fair employment practice agency, states that an individual has "300 days from the date of alleged harm to file a charge with this office against an employer with 15 or more employees for discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, and/or disability in the state of Tennessee" (20 or more employees for age). The EEOC counts a harassment charge from "the last incident of harassment."

The full procedure after a firing is on the Tennessee wrongful termination page, which also covers remedies and the damages caps that § 4-21-312 sets by employer size. The Tennessee employment discrimination settlement calculator is an estimating tool, not a prediction of any outcome.

Training and written policies

The Human Rights Act, as rewritten in 2025, contains no harassment training or written-policy requirement for private employers. The rewrite also deleted § 4-3-1416, the former provision on distributing sexual harassment posters and pamphlets (Pub. Ch. 471, § 15).

NDAs and sexual harassment

Tennessee has one statute on harassment nondisclosure agreements for private employers, enacted in 2018 (Pub. Ch. 965). Section 50-1-108 provides:

"(a) An employer, as defined in § 50-1-304, shall not require an employee, as defined in § 50-1-304, or a prospective employee to execute or renew a non-disclosure agreement with respect to sexual harassment in the workplace as a condition of employment. (b) Any employee injured as a result of a violation of subsection (a) has the same rights and remedies available to employees under § 50-1-304." (Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-108)

The rule has limits written into it. It concerns agreements required "as a condition of employment," it concerns sexual harassment in the workplace, and it does not mention settlement agreements or harassment on other grounds.

Two rules reach public employers only. A local education agency may not enter into, or require an opposing party to enter into, "a non-disclosure agreement during a settlement, or as a prerequisite to settlement, for any act of sexual misconduct, including, but not limited to, sexual harassment or sexual assault" (2018 Pub. Ch. 938). And a provision of a settlement agreement entered into by a state or local governmental entity that has the effect of prohibiting disclosure of the identities of persons relating to a claim is void, although identifying information about a victim of sexual harassment stays confidential until that person authorizes disclosure (2019 Pub. Ch. 425).

The Human Rights Act itself contains no NDA or arbitration provision. Federal law adds limits for sexual harassment disputes through the Speak Out Act and the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, both explained on the workplace harassment laws hub.

Is workplace bullying illegal in Tennessee?

The Human Rights Act reaches discrimination because of the traits it lists. It contains no provision on general workplace bullying that is not tied to one of those traits, such as hostility aimed at an employee for reasons unrelated to race, creed, color, religion, sex, age or national origin.

Tennessee's Healthy Workplace Act, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 50-1-501 to 50-1-504, addresses "abusive conduct," defined to include repeated verbal abuse, threatening, intimidating or humiliating conduct, and sabotage or undermining of an employee's work performance. It does not make bullying unlawful. It provides for a model policy written by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations that an employer, including a private employer since 2019, may adopt. An employer that adopts the model policy or a conforming policy "is immune from suit for any employee's abusive conduct that results in negligent or intentional infliction of mental anguish"; the Act does not limit "the personal liability of an employee for any abusive conduct in the workplace"; and it creates no cause of action against an employer that does not adopt a policy (§ 50-1-504).

Documenting harassment and workplace monitoring

The rules on recording a conversation at work, including one with a harasser, are on the Tennessee workplace recording laws page. Employer monitoring of email, devices and workspaces is covered on the Tennessee employee monitoring laws page.

Recent changes to Tennessee harassment law

• 2014: Public Chapter 995 barred individual liability of an employee or agent for employment violations an employer is found to have committed, removed the aiding-and-abetting clause and set compensatory damages caps by employer size, for actions accruing on or after July 1, 2014. Public Chapter 997 enacted the Healthy Workplace Act for public employers.
• 2018: Public Chapter 965 enacted § 50-1-108, barring an employer from requiring a sexual harassment nondisclosure agreement as a condition of employment.
• 2019: Public Chapter 214 extended the Healthy Workplace Act's definition of "employer" to private employers.
• 2025: Public Chapter 471 rewrote the Tennessee Human Rights Act. The Tennessee Human Rights Commission terminated at the end of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025; complaints go to the Attorney General's Civil Rights Enforcement Division; § 4-21-401(e) restates the individual-liability bar and § 4-21-301(b) extends it to retaliation; and § 4-3-1416 was deleted.

Related pages

• Workplace harassment laws by state
• Tennessee wrongful termination
• Tennessee at-will employment laws
• Tennessee employee monitoring laws
• Tennessee workplace recording laws

This article provides general legal information about Tennessee workplace harassment law under the Tennessee Human Rights Act, the Tennessee Disability Act and Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-108 as of 2026-10-20. It is not legal advice. For advice about a specific situation, contact a lawyer licensed in Tennessee or the Tennessee Attorney General's Civil Rights Enforcement Division.

Last updated: 2026-10-20.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is workplace harassment illegal in Tennessee?

Harassment because of a protected trait is reached by Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-401(a), which bars an employer of eight or more individuals within Tennessee from discriminating with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of race, creed, color, religion, sex, age (40 or older), or national origin.

Where do you file a harassment complaint in Tennessee now?

With the Tennessee Attorney General's Civil Rights Enforcement Division (CRED). The Tennessee Human Rights Commission terminated at the end of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, under 2025 Public Chapter 471.

How long do you have to file a harassment complaint in Tennessee?

A complaint to CRED must be filed within 180 days after the alleged discriminatory practice (§ 4-21-204(e)). A lawsuit under the Act must be filed in chancery or circuit court within one year after the alleged discriminatory practice ceases (§ 4-21-311(d)), and filing with CRED does not extend that year.

Can an individual harasser be held liable under the Tennessee Human Rights Act?

Under § 4-21-401(e), which restates a rule in the Act since 2014 Public Chapter 995, an individual employee or agent of an employer is not liable for a civil violation of the Act's employment part that an employer is found to have committed. Section 4-21-301(b) says the same for retaliation.

How many employees does an employer need for the Tennessee Human Rights Act to apply?

Eight or more individuals within Tennessee (§ 4-21-102(8)). The Tennessee Disability Act uses the same eight-person threshold (§ 8-50-103(d)).

Can a Tennessee employer require an NDA about sexual harassment?

Section 50-1-108 bars an employer from requiring an employee or prospective employee to execute or renew a nondisclosure agreement with respect to sexual harassment in the workplace as a condition of employment. The section does not address settlement agreements or other kinds of harassment.

Does Tennessee require sexual harassment training for private employers?

The Tennessee Human Rights Act, as rewritten in 2025, contains no harassment training or written-policy requirement for private employers.

Is workplace bullying illegal in Tennessee?

The Tennessee Human Rights Act reaches discrimination tied to the traits it lists, such as sex, race and religion. It contains no provision on general workplace bullying unconnected to those traits. The separate Healthy Workplace Act (§§ 50-1-501 to 50-1-504) lets employers adopt a model abusive-conduct policy in exchange for immunity from certain suits, but it creates no cause of action against an employer that does not adopt one.