How long do I have to bring a harassment claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act?

One year. Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(a), requires that a claim of an unfair discriminatory practice be brought as a civil action, filed in a charge with a local human rights commission, or filed in a charge with the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights within one year after the occurrence of the practice. The one-year period can be suspended in the two circumstances § 363A.28, subd. 3(b) and (c), describe.

The 2024 Amendment Untethered Harassment From Sex. It Did Not Touch 'Severe or Pervasive.'

Nothing on this page is advice about your job, and no article can be. If you want your own facts looked at, a Minnesota employment attorney can do that — and several of the deadlines described on this site are short enough that waiting is itself a decision.

One sentence changed, and it changed who is covered

On August 1, 2024, the Minnesota Human Rights Act’s definition of “discriminate” stopped being about sex. Through the 2023 edition of the statutes, Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 13, read:

The term “discriminate” includes segregate or separate and, for purposes of discrimination based on sex, it includes sexual harassment.

Laws 2024, ch. 105, § 3, struck the sex-specific clause. The subdivision now reads, in full:

The term “discriminate” includes segregate, separate, or harassment.

Read what came out. The old subdivision made harassment a form of discrimination for purposes of discrimination based on sex. The new one does not qualify it. Harassment is discrimination under the chapter, and the chapter’s employment provision prohibits discrimination on fourteen grounds, not one.

Chapter 105 carries no effective-date clause and makes no appropriation. Under Minn. Stat. § 645.02, an act without a specified date “takes effect on August 1 next following its final enactment,” at 12:01 a.m. The governor signed chapter 105 on May 15, 2024, so the amendment took effect August 1, 2024.

The same act made one other change worth knowing about here. Laws 2024, ch. 105, § 6, amended § 363A.04 to insert “administrative” before “procedure” in the exclusivity clause and to add a sentence: “The rights and remedies herein provided are in addition to, and shall not preclude, those available at law or in equity.”

The unfair employment practice, in the statute’s own words

Minn. Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 2, is the provision a harassment claim against an employer runs through:

Except when based on a bona fide occupational qualification, it is an unfair employment practice for an employer, because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, familial status, membership or activity in a local commission, disability, sexual orientation, or age to:

(1) refuse to hire or to maintain a system of employment which unreasonably excludes a person seeking employment; or

(2) discharge an employee; or

(3) discriminate against a person with respect to hiring, tenure, compensation, terms, upgrading, conditions, facilities, or privileges of employment.

Note the one ground on this list that the others do not carry — “membership or activity in a local commission,” the eleventh item of fourteen. Subdivisions 1, 3, and 4 of the same section list thirteen classes each. Only the employer subdivision adds that one.

Subdivision 2 carries no small-employer exemption. Section 363A.03, subd. 16, defines “employer” as “a person who has one or more employees,” and subdivision 2 applies to every one of them. One duty elsewhere in the same section is limited by headcount: under § 363A.08, subd. 6(a), the reasonable-accommodation duty for a disability reaches only an employer with a number of part-time or full-time employees “for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year equal to or greater than 25 effective July 1, 1992, and equal to or greater than 15 effective July 1, 1994.” That threshold sits in subdivision 6 and does not reach the prohibition in subdivision 2.

Currency. The Revisor currently publishes the 2025 edition of the statutes. Its Table 2 for § 363A.08 returns one action in the 2026 regular session: subdivision 4 was amended by Laws 2026, ch. 88, art. 1, § 196, which struck a cross-reference to “sections 363A.06, subdivision 4, and” from paragraph (b). Subdivision 2 was not amended in 2026.

“Severe or pervasive” is not in the statute, and Kenneh kept it anyway

A text search of chapter 363A as the Revisor publishes it returns no occurrence of the word “severe” and none of the word “pervasive.” The standard is judicial, imported from federal Title VII decisions, and in 2020 the Minnesota Supreme Court was asked to throw it out.

It declined. Kenneh v. Homeward Bound, Inc., 944 N.W.2d 222 (Minn. 2020) — quotations here are to the court’s slip opinion in No. A18-0174, filed June 3, 2020 — states the disposition in its opening paragraph:

Because the severe-or-pervasive standard continues to provide a useful framework for analyzing the objective component of a claim for sexual harassment under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, we decline to overturn our precedent.

Kenneh, slip op. at 3. But the same opinion reset how the framework is applied, and the reset is the part that matters to a reader trying to work out whether what is happening at work is actionable. The first syllabus point:

Alleged conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive to state a claim for sexual harassment under the Minnesota Human Rights Act if a reasonable person, considering the totality of the circumstances, would find the alleged behavior objectively abusive or offensive.

Id. at 2. The court said the standard cannot be frozen:

For the severe-or-pervasive standard to remain useful in Minnesota, the standard must evolve to reflect changes in societal attitudes towards what is acceptable behavior in the workplace.

Id. at 12. It named two older formulations as examples of what would no longer be tolerated — conduct courts had “brushed aside as an ‘unsuccessful pursuit of a relationship’” or as “boorish, chauvinistic, and decidedly immature” — and in a footnote overruled the Minnesota Court of Appeals decision it drew the first phrase from, “[t]o the extent that the court of appeals’ analysis in Geist-Miller, 783 N.W.2d 197, is inconsistent with this opinion, it is overruled.” Id. at 13 & n.4.

Three more sentences from Kenneh do real work:

Put another way, each case in Minnesota state court must be considered on its facts, not on a purportedly analogous federal decision. A single, severe incident may support a claim for relief.

Id. at 14.

Our decision today does not transform the Human Rights Act into a general civility code. But we caution courts against usurping the role of a jury when evaluating a claim on summary judgment.

Id. at 14.

If a reasonable person could find the alleged behavior objectively abusive or offensive, a claim is sufficiently severe or pervasive to survive summary judgment.

Id. at 15.

The claim: "If it wasn't physical, it isn't harassment."

The statute does not say that, and neither does the case law. Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 43, defines sexual harassment to include "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, sexually motivated physical contact or other verbal or physical conduct or communication of a sexual nature" when, among other triggers, that conduct or communication "has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual's employment ... or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive employment ... environment." § 363A.03, subd. 43(3). Verbal conduct and communication are named in the definition alongside physical contact. In Kenneh, the conduct the supreme court held sufficient to reach a jury was comments ("you look pretty," "hey sexy"), a proposition, repeated tongue gestures, and a pattern of blocking the employee's office doorway — "at least five separate incidents in less than 4 months, with ongoing interactions between these events." Kenneh, slip op. at 17. The court added that "[a] single, severe incident may support a claim for relief." Id. at 14.

The employer-notice question, and where it actually comes from

Chapter 363A does not say when an employer is answerable for one employee’s conduct toward another. A search of the chapter as posted returns no provision addressing supervisor or co-worker liability, and § 363A.08, subd. 2, is silent on the point.

It was not always silent. Through the 2000 edition, the statutory definition of sexual harassment ended with this clause:

; and in the case of employment, the employer knows or should know of the existence of the harassment and fails to take timely and appropriate action.

Minn. Stat. § 363.01, subd. 41 (2000). Laws 2001, ch. 194, § 1, struck that clause. The definition now at § 363A.03, subd. 43, ends with the “intimidating, hostile, or offensive” environment language and stops.

The requirement survived in the case law, because Cummings v. Koehnen, 568 N.W.2d 418 (Minn. 1997), had quoted it from the then-current statute:

In addition, to hold the employer liable, a plaintiff must show that “the employer knows or should know of the existence of the harassment and fails to take timely and appropriate action.” Minn.Stat. § 363.01, subd. 41. This is a high threshold, and our holding here today does not change that fact.

Cummings, 568 N.W.2d at 424. Twenty-three years later, Kenneh framed the remand issue in the same terms — whether the employer “knew or should have known about Johnson’s behavior and failed to take appropriate remedial action.” Kenneh, slip op. at 19–20.

What Kenneh held about how an employer comes to know is the useful part. The court of appeals had faulted the employee for not filing additional written complaints and for being “unable to identify when she complained to her supervisor.” The supreme court held that reasoning rested on impermissible credibility determinations:

She testified that she reported Johnson’s behavior to her supervisor at least twice after her formal complaint and that she reported that Johnson’s behavior was affecting her work performance before Homeward Bound terminated her employment. … Viewed in the light most favorable to Kenneh, these assertions create a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether Homeward Bound knew or should have known about Johnson’s behavior and failed to take appropriate remedial action. The court of appeals’ determination to the contrary was based on impermissible credibility determinations.

Id. at 19–20.

The claim: "It doesn't count unless you told HR, in writing."

No provision of chapter 363A requires that, and Kenneh is the opposite. A search of the chapter as the Revisor publishes it turns up no requirement of a written complaint, and none that a complaint go to a human resources department rather than to a supervisor. In Kenneh, the Minnesota Supreme Court treated verbal reports to a supervisor — reports the employee could not date — as sufficient to raise a fact question on employer knowledge, and held that the court of appeals' contrary determination "was based on impermissible credibility determinations." Kenneh, slip op. at 19–20. What an employer's own policy says does not change the legal test either: the court held that "[t]he terms of a non-contractual employment policy do not alter statutory definitions or the showing needed to establish a statutory claim under the Human Rights Act." Id. at 16. That cut against the employee in Kenneh, who had argued a "HARASSMENT OF ANY KIND IS NOT TOLERATED" line in the employee guide bound her employer to a zero-tolerance standard. Id. at 15. It cuts both ways.

Reporting it is separately protected

Minn. Stat. § 363A.15 makes retaliation for a complaint its own unfair discriminatory practice:

It is an unfair discriminatory practice for any individual who participated in the alleged discrimination as a perpetrator, employer, labor organization, employment agency, public accommodation, public service, educational institution, or owner, lessor, lessee, sublessee, assignee or managing agent of any real property, or any real estate broker, real estate salesperson, or employee or agent thereof to intentionally engage in any reprisal against any person because that person:

(1) opposed a practice forbidden under this chapter or has filed a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter; or

(2) associated with a person or group of persons who are disabled or who are of different race, color, creed, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or national origin.

The section then supplies a definition and a list:

A reprisal includes, but is not limited to, any form of intimidation, retaliation, or harassment. It is a reprisal for an employer to do any of the following with respect to an individual because that individual has engaged in the activities listed in clause (1) or (2): refuse to hire the individual; depart from any customary employment practice; transfer or assign the individual to a lesser position in terms of wages, hours, job classification, job security, or other employment status; or inform another employer that the individual has engaged in the activities listed in clause (1) or (2).

Two features are easy to miss. The section requires the reprisal to be intentional. And “opposed a practice forbidden under this chapter” does not require that a charge ever have been filed — opposition alone is on the list.

Whether a complaint about something other than a violation of chapter 363A is protected is a different statute with different elements: see the Whistleblower Act protects the report.

The clock

A harassment claim is a claim of an unfair discriminatory practice, and it runs on the chapter’s one-year period under Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(a). That deadline, the two events that suspend it, and how the separate federal deadline works are on a Minnesota discrimination claim is usually lost on the calendar. If the route is a charge with the Department of Human Rights rather than a lawsuit, the process is on the MDHR charge, step by step.

Applying the severe-or-pervasive standard to a particular course of conduct is a question Kenneh assigned largely to a jury, and it is not one this page answers.

Common questions

Did Minnesota get rid of the 'severe or pervasive' standard for harassment?: No. A text search of chapter 363A as the Revisor publishes it returns no occurrence of the words 'severe' or 'pervasive' — the standard has never been in the statute. It comes from case law, and the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to abandon it in Kenneh v. Homeward Bound, Inc., 944 N.W.2d 222 (Minn. 2020), holding that 'the severe-or-pervasive standard continues to provide a useful framework for analyzing the objective component of a claim for sexual harassment under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.' What Kenneh did do was reset its application: the court's first syllabus point is that conduct 'is sufficiently severe or pervasive to state a claim for sexual harassment under the Minnesota Human Rights Act if a reasonable person, considering the totality of the circumstances, would find the alleged behavior objectively abusive or offensive.'
What changed in the Minnesota Human Rights Act in 2024?: The definition of 'discriminate' at Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 13. Before August 1, 2024, it read that the term 'includes segregate or separate and, for purposes of discrimination based on sex, it includes sexual harassment.' Laws 2024, ch. 105, § 3, struck the sex-specific clause. The subdivision now reads in full: 'The term "discriminate" includes segregate, separate, or harassment.' Laws 2024, ch. 105, § 6, separately amended § 363A.04, adding the sentence 'The rights and remedies herein provided are in addition to, and shall not preclude, those available at law or in equity' and inserting 'administrative' before 'procedure' in the exclusivity clause.
Does harassment have to be physical to violate the Minnesota Human Rights Act?: The statute does not say so. Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 43, defines sexual harassment to include 'unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, sexually motivated physical contact or other verbal or physical conduct or communication of a sexual nature' when, among other things, the conduct or communication 'has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual's employment ... or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive employment ... environment.' Verbal conduct and communication are named alongside physical contact. In Kenneh v. Homeward Bound, Inc., 944 N.W.2d 222 (Minn. 2020), the conduct the supreme court held sufficient to survive summary judgment consisted of comments, a proposition, tongue gestures, and blocking a doorway.
Do I have to complain in writing, or to HR, for harassment to count?: Chapter 363A as posted by the Revisor contains no provision requiring a written complaint or a complaint to a human resources department. In Kenneh v. Homeward Bound, Inc., 944 N.W.2d 222 (Minn. 2020), the supreme court treated the employee's testimony that she reported the behavior to her supervisor at least twice after her formal complaint as creating a genuine issue of material fact on whether the employer 'knew or should have known about Johnson's behavior and failed to take appropriate remedial action,' and held that the court of appeals' contrary determination 'was based on impermissible credibility determinations.'
How long do I have to bring a harassment claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act?: One year. Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(a), requires that a claim of an unfair discriminatory practice be brought as a civil action, filed in a charge with a local human rights commission, or filed in a charge with the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights within one year after the occurrence of the practice. The one-year period can be suspended in the two circumstances § 363A.28, subd. 3(b) and (c), describe.

Sources checked September 7, 2026. Citations independently verified against the primary source September 8, 2026.