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Discrimination / Harassment

EEOC warns against caregiver stereotyping

03/24/2022
The EEOC has issued new guidance that warns against making assumptions based on the possibility that an applicant or employee might one day have to take time off to assume a caregiving role. The EEOC guidance offers these scenarios as examples of situations that could create employer liability.

Illegal harassment vs. legal (but still wrong) bullying

03/17/2022
Nate’s mistreatment of Will in Season 2 of the hit TV show Ted Lasso is uncomfortable to watch and horrendous management. But is it illegal? The answer is no.

War puts national origin bias in the spotlight

03/17/2022
After 9/11, workplace harassment of Muslims increased in the United States. During COVID, the EEOC reported a spike in discrimination against workers of Asian descent. Now legal experts are warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing some Russian-American employees in this country—and even simply employees with Eastern European accents—to be harassed and discriminated against based on their national origin.

Jury finds discrimination, but awards no damages

03/17/2022
It always pays to document poor performance in detail and contemporaneously. If you ultimately need to terminate the employee, you will have the backup you need to justify your decision, even if the employee claims that you somehow discriminated against him.

House votes down federal protection for ethnic hairstyles

03/15/2022
The House of Representatives failed to pass a bill that would have made it unlawful to discharge or fail to hire someone “based on the individual’s hair texture or hairstyle, if that hair texture or that hairstyle is commonly associated with a particular race or national origin.”

Beware hybrid bias suits citing 2 protected statuses

03/10/2022
The EEOC doesn’t just rely on following Title VII’s enumerated protected classes. It’s increasingly filing lawsuits that combine allegations of discrimination on the basis of more than one protected class.

Biden signs bill banning forced arbitration of harassment claims

03/08/2022
The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 is now the law of the land. The bill, which took effect immediately when President Biden signed it March 3, makes it illegal to require employees to arbitrate sexual harassment claims.

Beware pay cuts that disadvantage minorities

03/03/2022
Many employees who began working remotely two years ago decided to relocate to areas with low costs of living.  Some employers responded by cutting relocated workers’ pay—not always a popular practice, but somewhat defensible. But that calculus could trigger legal trouble, potentially affecting some protected classes of employees more than others.

Avoid stereotypes when evaluating employees

02/24/2022
Before criticizing or disciplining an employee for some qualitative shortcoming—such as being uncooperative, argumentative or overly aggressive—consider whether you would apply the same standard to someone belonging to a different protected class. Using stereotypes to define expectations is a recipe for legal disaster.

Dangerous succession plan: Make ‘dinobabies’ go ‘extinct’

02/24/2022
Documents filed in support of an age-discrimination lawsuit against IBM reveal that high-level Big Blue executives called older workers “dinobabies” who needed to get out of the way so younger employees could advance.