Can My Employer Force Arbitration for Sexual Harassment?

No. Since March 3, 2022, the choice belongs to you. If your claim involves sexual assault or sexual harassment, federal law lets you void a forced arbitration clause and file in court instead. That holds even if you signed the agreement years ago, buried in a stack of onboarding paperwork, as a condition of getting the job.

For decades, arbitration clauses kept harassment claims out of public view. A survivor would report what happened, and the case would disappear into a private proceeding chosen and often paid for by the employer. The law changed that. Here’s what it does, what it doesn’t do, and how to tell whether it covers your situation.

What Is Forced Arbitration?

Forced arbitration is a contract term that requires you to resolve disputes in front of a private arbitrator instead of a judge and jury. You usually agree to it long before anything goes wrong, often on your first day of work, and often without realizing it. Because the clause is signed before any dispute exists, the law calls it a predispute arbitration agreement.

Arbitration isn’t automatically bad. It can be faster and less formal than litigation. The problem is what it did to harassment claims specifically:

• It kept the record private. Court filings are public. Arbitration usually isn’t, so a serial harasser’s history stayed invisible to the next person he worked with.
• It blocked survivors from joining forces. Many contracts pair arbitration with a class-action waiver, so ten people with the same complaint had to fight ten separate battles.
• It shifted the odds. The employer is a repeat player who has used the same arbitration forum many times. The employee almost never is.

That imbalance is why the practice drew so much attention during the #MeToo movement, and it’s why Congress eventually stepped in.

What Does the Ending Forced Arbitration Act Do?

The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act became law on March 3, 2022. It amended the Federal Arbitration Act by adding 9 U.S.C. section 402, which says that at the election of the person alleging sexual assault or sexual harassment, no predispute arbitration agreement or joint-action waiver is valid or enforceable against them.

Four things follow from that:

• You choose the forum, not your employer. The statute works “at the election of the person alleging conduct.” If you want court, you get court. If you decide arbitration suits you better, that option stays open.
• Class-action waivers fall too. The Act reaches predispute joint-action waivers, so you can join with coworkers who experienced the same thing.
• A judge decides whether the law applies, not an arbitrator. Section 402(b) puts that question in court, under federal law, no matter what the contract says. That matters, because employers used to argue the arbitrator should decide whether arbitration was required.
• It isn’t limited to employees. The text covers cases filed under federal, tribal, or state law and isn’t written to stop at the workplace door. Arbitration clauses in consumer contracts, leases, and app terms of service can be challenged the same way.

Does the Law Cover an Agreement You Already Signed?

Yes, and this is the part that gets reported incorrectly most often. The age of the agreement doesn’t matter. What matters is when your claim arose. The Act applies to any dispute or claim that arises or accrues on or after March 3, 2022, regardless of when you signed the paperwork.

So the law is not retroactive in the way people sometimes assume. It doesn’t reopen conduct from 2019, and it doesn’t undo an arbitration that already concluded.

If your dates fall anywhere near the line, don’t guess. Ongoing or repeated conduct raises accrual questions that turn on specifics, and getting them wrong can cost you the choice entirely.

Can Your Employer Still Hold You to an NDA?

Not if the NDA was signed before the dispute arose. The Speak Out Act, which became law on December 7, 2022, makes predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses judicially unenforceable in sexual assault and sexual harassment disputes. It applies to claims filed on or after that date.

Read that carefully, because the limit matters. The Speak Out Act targets clauses you signed before anything happened, the kind tucked into an employment contract. It doesn’t automatically void a confidentiality term you negotiate later as part of settling a claim you’ve already brought.

Together, the two federal laws close the loop. One stops your employer from forcing your claim into a private forum. The other stops them from using paperwork you signed on day one to keep you from talking about it. Those two tools are exactly what allowed powerful abusers to operate for decades, a pattern we cover in our guide to celebrity sexual assault.

California Goes Further

California doesn’t stop at predispute agreements. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 1001, a settlement agreement can’t include a provision preventing you from disclosing factual information about a claim of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or workplace harassment, discrimination, or retaliation. Provisions that try are void as against public policy.

Your privacy is still protected if you want it. You can ask that your own identity, and facts that could reveal it, stay confidential. The point of the statute is that the choice is yours rather than a condition your employer imposes to settle.

How We Got Here: The Google Walkout

Federal law didn’t change on its own. In late 2018, a New York Times investigation reported that Google had paid Android creator Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package after finding a sexual misconduct claim against him credible, and that his departure was presented publicly as an ordinary resignation.

A week later, roughly 17,000 Google workers walked out. It started in Tokyo and rolled westward through Singapore, Dublin, London, Berlin, Zurich, and New York, ending at the company’s Mountain View headquarters. Their published demands led with one item: end forced arbitration for harassment and discrimination claims.

Google agreed within days, dropping forced arbitration for sexual harassment claims. Facebook, Lyft, and Wells Fargo followed. What began as a company policy fight became the template for a federal statute three years later. If you’ve wondered whether speaking up changes anything, this is what it looks like when it does.

What This Means for Your Case

You now have a real choice, and it’s worth making deliberately rather than by default. Court and arbitration each have tradeoffs.

• Court is public, allows broader discovery into what your employer knew, permits a jury, and creates a record that protects the next person.
• Arbitration is private, usually faster, and less formal. Some survivors prefer it precisely because it keeps their name out of the public record.

There’s no universally right answer. What’s different now is that nobody gets to make the decision for you. A workplace sexual assault lawyer can walk you through how each path would work with your facts, your timeline, and your employer.

You may also have administrative options running alongside a civil claim. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission handles federal harassment charges, and the California Civil Rights Department handles state complaints. Both carry their own deadlines, which are often shorter than the deadline to file a lawsuit.

Frequently Asked Questions About Forced Arbitration

Talk to a Workplace Sexual Harassment Lawyer

If you signed something years ago and assumed it closed the door, it probably didn’t. That’s worth a conversation before you decide anything.

Jessica Pride and the team at The Pride Law Firm have spent nearly two decades representing survivors, including people whose employers told them arbitration was their only option. We can review what you signed, work out when your claim accrued, and explain what each path would actually look like. If you’re in Southern California, our San Diego sexual assault lawyer team is here, and we represent survivors nationwide.

Call (619) 516-8166 or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation. Whether or not you signed a forced arbitration agreement, you have options, and you don’t have to work out which one is right on your own.

Last reviewed: July 27, 2026. This article explains general legal developments and isn’t legal advice about your specific situation.