Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis that has resulted in profound changes to when employees can claim discrimination relating to job decisions that do not appear to have much...more
6/20/2025
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Employee Rights ,
Employee Training ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Lateral Transfers ,
Muldrow v City of St Louis ,
Risk Management ,
SCOTUS ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected use of a special legal test for plaintiffs to prove illegal bias in reverse discrimination cases. ...more
6/13/2025
/ Ames v Ohio Department of Youth Services ,
Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Evidentiary Standards ,
Protected Class ,
Reverse Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
The applicability of U.S. labor and employment laws to U.S. citizens working outside of the country can be complicated. In general, if the citizen works for a U.S. company outside of the country, they enjoy the same legal...more
On May 20, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that it will no longer provide funding to state and local EEO agencies for purposes of investigating or prosecuting discrimination charges based on allegations...more
Last week, a federal district court in Texas granted summary judgment to the State of Texas in a lawsuit challenging portions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s workplace harassment guidance dealing with...more
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring federal agencies from investigating or prosecuting employment discrimination using the disparate impact concept. Most discrimination claims allege that an...more
4/25/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disparate Impact ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Government Agencies ,
Government Investigations ,
Protected Class ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration ,
Workplace Investigations
In recent years, a number of colleges and universities have added caste to their list of prohibited classifications under their anti-discrimination policies. Two Hindu professors at a public California university filed suit,...more
Since 1973, federal courts reviewing claims of employment discrimination have used a framework first established by the U.S. Supreme Court’s McDonnell Douglas decision. Under this framework, plaintiffs must show a prima facie...more
Last week, an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by red state attorneys general challenging the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s inclusion of abortion among...more
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal last month of an executive order that required larger federal contractors to create and implement affirmative action plans intended to increase the participation of women and...more
2/14/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Private Sector ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many employers established internal procedures to evaluate employees' requests for religious and medical-based exemptions from vaccination mandates. ...more
1/10/2025
/ Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Title VII
With the transition to the new administration in Washington taking place later this month, how could this change affect the enforcement priorities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? These priorities shift every...more
Lawsuits challenging employers' authority to require measures intended to prevent COVID-19 infections continue to wend their way through the federal judiciary. Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a claim...more
12/6/2024
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Beliefs ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Vaccinations ,
Virus Testing ,
Workplace Safety
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding. For years, federal courts have interpreted Title IX to include an implied right of action for...more
11/15/2024
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Coaches ,
Colleges ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Private Right of Action ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Teachers ,
Title IX ,
Title VII ,
Universities
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that it had reached a settlement agreement in a lawsuit filed against a Pennsylvania debt collection agency alleging failure to provide a religious...more
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers attempting to enforce safety policies faced resistance from employees opposed to vaccination mandates. In many cases, employees claimed that taking the vaccine violated...more
Employers are facing an increasing number of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges and lawsuits from white employees who claim that exposure to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training at work...more
In order to demonstrate discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, plaintiffs must show that they suffered an adverse employment action. When this action involves a termination, salary reduction or other...more
After investigating allegations of sexual harassment and taking disciplinary action, we see a surprising number of claims from the accused harassers that they were actually the victims of alleged discriminatory behavior that...more
Employers’ diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have faced recent pushback from employees and others who claim that the contents of training falsely accuse them of systemic bias based on their race....more
As flu and other respiratory virus rates peak across the U.S., hospitals and other health care providers are responding by taking measures such as limiting patient visitors. For years, one element of this response has...more
An increasing number of employers are expressing interest in using biometric technology in the workplace. For example, a company concerned that employees are clocking one another in and out of work could implement retinal...more
January 1 marked the effective date for a number of new state laws that attempt to restrict certain employers’ use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. State legislatures are restricted under the First...more
1/5/2024
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Colleges ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Effective Date ,
Employment Policies ,
First Amendment ,
New Legislation ,
Private Sector ,
Quotas ,
Reverse Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Universities
Much to the dismay of many small businesses, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed its review of a case that could have limited high-volume lawsuits against entities alleged to have violated public accommodation...more
In last term’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly increased employers’ obligation to consider religious exemption requests under Title VII. Rather than the previous de minimus burden standard,...more
12/8/2023
/ Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Dismissals ,
Employment Litigation ,
Groff v DeJoy ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Title VII ,
Undue Hardship ,
Vaccinations