Orsdxy

If you are all peers, it is simply very, very rude. It sounds like you may not care about that, since the person who you want to exclude deserves to be excluded.

If you are a manager, then it gets problematic, rather than just rude. According to Alison at AskAManager, you are opening yourself up to legitimate charges of favoritism. If you are in HR, that could also be a problem (Another AskAManager link).

If you are all peers, and you want to send a message as well as have a good time, then invite all but the one co-worker.

Would it be inappropriate to purposely exclude this guy?

It's your party.

That means you get to invite whoever you like and exclude whoever you choose.

You're not inviting your co-workers, you're inviting your friends you happen to work with. That co-worker is not your friend, so you do not invite him.

You may want to inform the invitees that he has not been invited. By your description, they'll probably be relieved, but at the very least they'll know to keep quiet about the invitation if necessary.

Yes it would be rude, and the possible awkwardness is a risk that you would have to be willing to deal with.

But of course, not inviting him is the right move to make. Him spoiling your party sounds like a far worse outcome.

You just need to prepared for some perhaps passive-aggressive dynamics in the workplace - but I imagine this guy knows why he is being excluded.

The other awkward scenario is that he directly confronts you why he wasn't invited, in which case you can give him an honest and direct answer.

YOUR house, YOUR rules.

You're not forced to invite an unwanted person in your house around your loved ones (probably including children) who has previous records of misbehaving and sexual harrasement in a public place, let alone what he could do in a private and intimate place.

I can argue that inviting him could pose a security threat also, given that most likely alcohol will be around.

You mention this person having harassed you and your wife on separate occasions. You are having a party for your new house (I imagine your wife will be present), you are inviting some people from work you have a good relation with, and you are doubting to invite that one bad person. How will your wife feel about that person being invited, you think, about inviting a harassing person into her own house? How will she react when she finds out you are even considering inviting that person? Why do you even care whether or not this is appropriate?

Just want to contribute my view. For me excluding one of your co-workers for a party is a bit demeaning. But because of the fact that one of your co-workers act rudely, because of the harassment that you are saying, then it is high time for him to be excluded in such occasions especially that you want it to be a pure fun get-together. Then if he confronts you for such action, then just tell him/her of his rudeness and make him/her realize it.

If I found out I was the only one not being asked to a party, I would definitely be upset (you may not care, but do we want to make it worse?).

But when you mentioned that you get together in groups of 3-4, an idea came to my mind - Plan TWO parties. Invite 3 or 4 of your coworker friends to the first party, and then invite the remaining friends to the second party. You are still excluding the one coworker, but since you aren't inviting everyone to each party it would be less obvious, and more like the get-togethers that are already happening.

If it is not workplace related then you can invite whoever you want.

But if it can somehow be seen as workplace related then this would constitute bullying by exclusion.

Telling a personal story, it did happen to me that two coworkers did not invite me for their respective marriages, while inviting most people in the department.

I did nothing about it. I have no quarrel with them, and those are particularly expensive parties, so I respect their right to invite whoever they want. In both cases, other people came to me and asked if I would be attending, to which I provided lame excuses. In both cases I did not confront them, despite I suspecting the invitations had been handed at the workplace while I was in vacation, but I thought of no way to ask about that which would not result in the person believing I wanted to invite myself.

A party at your house could also be a subject of limited attendee's numbers. There's at least a finite number of chairs at your house. It could as well be your wife's party.

In your case, you do have a reason to have issues with said colleague.

My advice is that you should avoid to do this kind of party frequently. One party I'm not invited, I suck it up. If every week there's a party and I'm out, this crosses the border to what I believe I should tolerate.

Then again, if you are not a manager now or in the near future, what could said person do? In my case there was nothing HR could or should do for me. You mention that HR did nothing about the harassment situation, maybe he has actually been adverted verbally or in written in private (as this things should be done), but you were not informed. Would receiving a warning pose a problem to you? If I was your manager, I'd follow the companies policies, but I would think no less of you for a misconduct of this kind.

Consider as well to invite the person out of politeness, If someone I dislike is hosting an event, I'll likely be voluntarily out, maybe I'll show up late and leave early. Seems like your guy would not do this though.

In a different note, remember to maintain friends outside the workplace! I strongly recommend having a social life that does not depend on coworkers. Imagine you get fired, would you be able to keep up attending parties with all the coworkers who are still at the same company? If you became their boss, wouldn't that unbalance the relationships? I'm saying that because if I moved to a new place, I would first throw a party with my non-coworker friends.

It is your party, and therefore appropriate to invite only who you want to. If you don't invite him and he confronts you, tell him he was not invited because your wife specifically asked you not to invite him, due to his previous sexual harassment of her.

(1) Make invitations orally - no e-mail trail unless it is personal e-mails or texts.

(2) Make it explicit who is invited and who is not, but you do not have to justify why or any details, not even about the harassment or anything - that is a separate issue.

Example: "Hi Jane, I'm having a housewarming on XYZ, would you and yours be interested in attending? This is a private event with some other coworkers."

=== The Sexual Harassment is absolutely not related to this question, but I'd advise you to make sure you follow-up on that ===

I don't necessarily agree that inviting the colleagues creates an obligation to invite all 8. As a person, I may invite any friends I wish to my parties, and clearly the one colleague is not my friend. The key here is that this party does not become a work event. I can have fun with people, but if I'm making the party about work, then it would not be appropriate to exclude only one work colleague.

That depends, how bad is the --

The other guy has sexually harassed me and my wife separately (my wife
doesn't work here), gets really drunk and says racist things, and has
to dominate every conversation.

yeah, come on, you know the answer to this. You don't owe him anything. If I was one of your coworkers, I'd be upset if you invited him. Don't invite him.

You opted to invite (nearly) all your coworkers. In a sense, you have now created a privately sanctioned company party. You can dress it up any other way you wish, but few people will see it any other way.

By excluding one coworker, you are going to be burning bridges, and your coworkers that are present will notice. This doesn't go over well for you in the long term.

Should you invite the person, their actions will be their own, and you will be a gracious host. Should you not invite the person, your actions will be your own, and even if most people agree with them today, any sympathy the person can raise will illustrate that you did the slight, and your coworkers will notice that you are willing to hurt the feelings of others.

In short, you have little to gain by not inviting this person.