Readers of this blog know that the EEOC recently finalized its new workplace harassment guidance and that one of the contentious issues in the guidance, according to a dissenting EEOC Commissioner, is the EEOC’s position that misgendering an employee, e.g., by consistently using the wrong pronouns, can violate Title VII.…
Have you ever heard of me-too evidence? Plaintiffs in discrimination cases may attempt to introduce me-too evidence to the jury to establish that the same harasser directed the same acts of discrimination or harassment against other employees. This evidence helps demonstrate a pattern or practice of misconduct that makes their own…
Suppose an employer transfers an employee, and that employee believes that unlawful bias fueled the decision. Does that transfer have to significantly disadvantage that employee to give rise to a discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The Supreme Court addressed that issue yesterday in…
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.…
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…
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…
In 2022, Florida passed The Individual Freedom Act. But most people know this law as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which stands for “Stop the Wrongs to our Kids and Employees.” Whatever we call it, the Act says employers cannot subject “any individual, as a condition of employment,” to “training, instruction,…
In most places, a plaintiff who claims that their former employer sexually harassed them must establish that the conduct to which they were subjected was severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment and create a hostile or abusive work environment. In New York, however, not so much.…
Federal agencies, like the U.S. Department of Justice, often publish news releases touting their lawsuits and significant judgments against employer scofflaws. But, I know a big one — a $1.2M judgment — that the DOJ will want to forget. According to multiple reports, including Grace Elletson’s at Law360, the DOJ offered…
Folks, I did not have EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas giving billionaire Mark Cuban a public antidiscrimination lesson on my Bingo board. But, as I was scrolling through X on Monday, here is what I saw: On Sunday, Mr. Cuban, of Shark Tank fame, the former principal owner of the NBA’s…