Suppose that several employees complain that a coworker is creating a “hostile work environment” because they were afraid that she (the coworker) was going to report them (the employees) for engaging in unspecified misconduct in the workplace.
Can the employer respond by mandating an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) referral as a condition of the coworker’s continued employment?
A tenured professor in a university’s history department learns of “discrimination” and “marginalization” of Hispanic employees within the department. The university appoints him to an “Equity Committee” to address the problem. As part of his remediation efforts, the professor creates a “salary report” confirming instances of pay disparity among minority professors. He then circulates the report to colleagues and supervisors.
Will the professor have a viable retaliation claim if the university later takes against the professor because of the salary report?
Last night, I read about a black female educator and school administrator who claimed that her employer agreed to pay for her to attend a training session but later reneged, instead offering to pay for her to attend in two years. So, she paid for it herself.
And then she sued her employer. Continue reading
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) forbids discrimination against employees or applicants because of genetic information. Specifically, Title II of GINA prohibits using genetic information in making employment decisions, restricts employers from requesting, requiring, or purchasing genetic information, and strictly limits the disclosure of genetic information.
While GINA has been in effect for over ten years, it gets very little attention. Employees bring fewer discrimination charges under GINA than any other federal antidiscrimination statute that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administers. But that doesn’t make it any less important or expensive when violations arise.
Check this out. Continue reading
A doctor whose job is to administer potentially life-saving medicine to patients, among them Jews, was reportedly fired after celebrating the massacre of Israelis by the Islamist terror group Hamas. Continue reading
Last year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a long-term care facility claiming that certain White patients/residents repeatedly directed offensive racial slurs at black nurses and nurse assistants, including “n—-r,” “coon,” “monkey,” and “Black b—–s.” One patient repeatedly told Black employees to “go back to Africa,” followed Black employees throughout the facility to racially berate them, and physically assaulted Black employees because of their race.
According to published reports, like this one from the Daily Mail, an Am Law 100 law firm rescinded a job offer to the president of a law school’s student bar association after learning that the student stated that Hamas’ slaughter of children in Israel was ‘necessary.’ Continue reading
The Employer Handbook Blog
