Outright workplace discrimination against a woman who’s complained about sexual harassment is against the law, says Emily Martin, general counsel at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington. But the reality does not always match up with legal niceties. “It’s not lawful for an employer to say, ‘We won’t hire someone [because of past harassment cases],’” she said. However, proving that you were passed over because of that history is difficult—”it’s hard to know why you don’t get a job,” she notes.