Last week, federal legislation intended to clarify and expand protections for pregnant employees passed the House of Representatives. The Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act has been introduced each term since 2012, but this year...more
Title VII requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to allow employees to work in ways compatible with their religious beliefs and practices. However, for decades, federal courts have interpreted this obligation...more
In last year’s landmark Bostock decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited under Title VII. In its earlier Oncale decision, the Court concluded that...more
Under Title VII, an employer may be liable for sexual harassment by one co-worker of another if it knew or should have known of the conduct and took no action. According to a recent decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from discrimination based on a range of protected classifications. However, Title VII only applies to employment relationships and cannot be used by contractors,...more
1/22/2021
/ Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Definition ,
Equity Partners ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Law Firm Partners ,
Law Practice Management ,
Professional Services Companies ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Title VII
Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that bans federal contractors from providing employees with "training sessions based on race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating." The order is part of an...more
10/2/2020
/ Bias ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employee Training ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
OFCCP ,
Popular ,
Race Relations ,
Sexual Stereotyping ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration
In its 2011 North American Stainless decision, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that an engaged man could sue for retaliation under Title VII after he was fired around the time his fiancée filed a discrimination claim against...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Bostock decision earlier this week confirmed that Title VII’s prohibitions against discrimination in employment based on sex apply to claims alleging bias due to sexual orientation or gender...more
6/22/2020
/ Altitude Express Inc v Zarda ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
EEOC v RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Gender Identity ,
Hiring & Firing ,
LGBTQ ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Transgender
Under Title VII, employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to employees who request work modifications for religious observances. However, following a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision, federal courts have...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows awards of both compensatory and punitive damages capped at a total amount depending on the size of the employer. In a new decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals...more
In recent years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) has substantially lowered the legal bar for plaintiffs to demonstrate a hostile work environment based on...more
Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in the making of contracts, including employment contracts. Section 1981 is often used by employees suing for race discrimination as...more
4/14/2020
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
But For Causation ,
Causation ,
Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Evidence ,
Pleading Standards ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS ,
Title VII ,
UT Southwestern Medical v Nassar
The Equal Pay Act allows employees to bring claims of pay discrimination based on gender by alleging that they were paid less than employees of a different gender who perform the same or similar work. This comparator...more
Employees subjected to sexual harassment have long been able to bring legal claims under Title VII alleging creation of a hostile and offensive working environment. Over time, these legal principles extended to other...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides specific time limitations for filing EEOC charges and subsequent lawsuits. What happens, however, if the employer and employee agree to shorten the period of time under which...more
Employees who transition genders may ask their employer and co-workers to begin addressing them with names and pronouns associated with that different gender. On September 17, a federal district court in Maryland (which,...more
The National Labor Relations Board continues its efforts to revisit earlier decisions that expanded protections for employees engaged in concerted or union activities. On September 5, the board announced it is soliciting...more
In recent years, a number of federal appellant courts, including the Fourth Circuit, have issued opinions finding that a single use of a racial slur can be enough to constitute a hostile and offensive working environment...more
9/6/2019
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Reaffirmation ,
Safety Violations ,
Slurs ,
Summary Judgment ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII
It’s not unusual to see an employee terminated or disciplined for workplace harassment to in turn file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that the employer’s reasons for the move were pretext...more
Under Title VII, employers are vicariously liable for incidents of sexual harassment engaged in by supervisors. In its Faragher and Ellerth decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged a limited defense to claims of...more
8/7/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Faragher/Ellerth defense ,
Managers ,
Risk Management ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII ,
Vicarious Liability ,
Wal-Mart ,
Workplace Investigations
One of the major trends in recent years in employment discrimination law has been the lowering of the standard required for a plaintiff to demonstrate a hostile and offensive working environment based on race or sex. Federal...more
8/5/2019
/ Appeals ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Facebook ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
Race Discrimination ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Social Networks ,
Title VII ,
Unions
In a recent claim filed against one of our clients, an aggrieved employee alleged that a manager who was a former military officer had a preference for hiring and promoting people with military experience. The employee in...more
North Carolina’s Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act (REDA) prohibits employers from taking retaliatory action against employees on the basis of workers’ compensation, OSHA, wage and hour, and other state labor law...more
7/22/2019
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Appeals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
OSHA ,
State Labor Laws ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
Earlier this month, California’s governor signed into law the Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act. The new law is the first of its kind in the U.S. Beginning January 1, 2020, it will prohibit...more
Employees cannot sue under federal anti-discrimination laws for every perceived slight or workplace occurrence. In order to be actionable, the alleged employer conduct must rise to the level of an “adverse employment action.”...more