A white man filed a lawsuit against a company claiming that it denied him a high-six-figure executive position because of his race, age, and sex so that the company could search for more diverse candidates. Among the causes of action he asserted was one for race discrimination under 42 U.S.C.…
Often, an employer has affirmative defenses when an employee accuses a supervisor of sexual harassment. But Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes liability automatic in two ways. First, there’s the situation involving quid pro quo sexual harassment. That happens when a supervisor conditions some tangible employment…
Congress has considered legislation several times that would prohibit employers from discriminating based on an individual’s hair texture or hairstyle if that hair texture or that hairstyle is commonly associated with a particular race or national origin. But it has never passed. Why? Because many believe that this law is…
The words “cisgender” or “non-transgender” employee appear nowhere in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal workplace law that outlaws gender discrimination. But, according to a Pennsylvania federal judge, “that does not preclude the possibility that discrimination against both a cisgender male and cisgender female may…
After taking a few days off and rocking out in Seattle, I’m back to blogging about employment law. 🤘🤘🤘 Today, we pull back the curtain and reveal how the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will address failure-to-accommodate claims under the Supreme Court’s new religious accommodation standard established last year in…
Suppose an employee gets fired after complaining about sexual harassment at work. If that person later claims retaliation, they will have to establish a nexus between the two events, and the complaint also arises to the level of what we call a “protected activity.” For an internal sexual harassment complaint…
A recent federal appellate court decision is an important reminder to confirm early—not later—whether the employee suing your business signed an arbitration agreement. The plaintiff had signed an agreement with an arbitration provision that covered his subsequent claims for disability discrimination, which he filed in federal court. But the employer…
I’m going to tell you about a transgender man who worked for three years as a sergeant for a state prison. While working at the prison, he began the process of medically and socially transitioning to align with his gender identity. He underwent hormone replacement therapy, obtained a legal name…
Imagine being an employer-defendant and reading that sentence as the lede in a court’s summary judgment opinion. Ouch! But that’s precisely what an Indiana federal judge wrote about a defendant who fired an employee after it appeared to the company that the worker had amassed too many absences related to…
In a recent Fourth Circuit decision, the plaintiff learned this lesson the hard way. The plaintiff, a lawyer who later earned a promotion to Town Manager, suffered from anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. He alleged in his complaint that the defendant knew about these disabilities. In January 2018, a…