Showing posts with label race discrimination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race discrimination. Show all posts

Thursday, October 17, 2019

New EEOC case is a not-so-subtle reminder that we still have a lot of work to do to improve race relations


The allegations in this case—which the EEOC just filed against a Louisiana river transporter—remind us that while race relations have improved over the past several decades, they are far from perfect and we remain a nation with a lot of work to do.

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Why “ban the box” doesn’t work for employers or employees


Listen this clip from Ear Hustle (a podcast about “the daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration”), and then let’s chat about “ban the box.”


Wednesday, July 17, 2019

There isn’t a “magic number” of racial or ethnic insults an employee must prove to establish a hostile work environment


Jamie Ortiz (of Puerto Rican descent) worked for the Broward County, Florida, School Board in various capacities for nearly 20 years, including, from 2009 through 2017, as an auto mechanic in the district’s garage under the supervision of Michael Kriegel.

According to the testimony of both Ortiz and many of his co-workers, Kriegel had some issues with Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics, which he expressed to anyone who would listen, including Ortiz, on a daily basis.

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

There’s no such thing as “reverse” discrimination—it’s all just discrimination


According to the New York Post, a Caucasian 20-year veteran attorney for the Legal Aid Society is suing her former employer for race discrimination. Among other issues in her lawsuit, she claims that she was denied a lateral move “because of ‘diversity considerations.’”

Do you know that some courts impose a different, higher legal standard for discrimination against white employees than for discrimination against African-American employees?

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

What’s a hostile work environment? You’ll know it when you see it.


“I know it when I see it.” These are the famous words of Justice Potter Stewart defining legal obscenity in his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964).

I feel the same way about a hostile work environment. For a hostile work environment to be actionable, it must (among other factors) be objectivity hostile. What does this mean? It’s hard to define, but I know it when I see it.

Monday, April 29, 2019

I REALLY thought people knew better not to advertise jobs “for whites”


Cynet Systems, an IT and engineering staffing company, had a viral mess on its hands over the weekend, after it posted a job that asked for candidates “Preferably Caucasian.”

Monday, March 4, 2019

Harassment need not be "hellish" to be actionable


Gates v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago (7th Cir. 2/20/19) asks a question that we see time and again in harassment cases—how bad does does the conduct have to be to support a harassment claim. The answer is bad enough, but not so bad so as to be classified as "hellish."

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

How many n-bombs does it take to create a hostile work environment?


Smelter v. Southern Home Care Services (11th Cir. 9/24/18) answers the question, "How many n-bombs does it take to create an unlawful hostile work environment?"

So as not to bury the lede, the answer is one.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Despite what one court held, workplace discrimination laws DO protect employees from non-employees



Pop quiz: Can an employer ignore harassment or other discriminatory behavior directed at employees by non-employees?

If your answer is "yes," you'd be in agreement with the court in Shaw v. Access Ohio (Ohio Ct. App. 7/27/18).

You'd also be dead wrong.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Netflix demonstrates it has zero-tolerance for the N-word


Netflix has fired one of its top executives for his use of the "n-word" at work.

 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, sources say that Jonathan Friedland, Netflix's (now former) chief communications officer allegedly used the n-word in a meeting with other Netflix staffers, in which they were discussing the use of sensitive words in public relations communications. Friedland then allegedly exacerbated the problem by again using that word during a meeting with two of the company's African-American HR employees counseling him on the original incident.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Who is Otis Burke?


By now you’ve almost certainly heard about ABC’s cancellation of Roseanne, after Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s former senior advisor.


Today, a lot of internet ink will be spilled about ABC’s swift and decisive reaction to cut the head off any potential controversy, how private-sector employees lack free speech rights at work, and why Roseanne’s after-the-fact excuse that she was Ambien-tweeting is irrelevant.

I’d like to come at this from a different angle—all of the individuals who are now unemployed because Roseanne Barr said something racist and offensive and stupid.

Including Otis Burke.

Monday, April 30, 2018

Hair discrimination; not a thing


Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there hair, shoulder length or longer
Here, baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair
– “Hair”
Friday’s tongue in check post about the beauty of baldness got me thinking about hair and employment law.

Or, more to the point, can an employer run afoul of discrimination laws by making an employment decision based on one’s hairstyle?

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Tattoos at work: more acceptance, yet still some legal risk


By ABC TV [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons
I am not a tattoo person. Yet, a whole lot of people are. And the numbers are increasing.

In fact, according to one recent survey, 3 in 10 Americans have at least one tattoo, up 50% in just four years. And, the younger you are, the more likely you are to sport a tattoo: 47% of millennials have a tattoo, as compared to 36% of gen Xers and only 13% of baby boomers.

Monday, February 12, 2018

What does it mean to be religious?


Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about religion. Or, rather, what it means to be religious.

I am not religious. Or at least not in the organized sense.

This does not mean that I am an atheist, or a pagan, or a heathen, or whatever other aspersion you’d like to cast upon me.

It just means that I do not believe I need a building and a structure upon which to ascribe my beliefs.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Amid all of the sexual harassment concerns, let us not forget that other types of harassment exist


So much of the news lately has focused on sexual harassment, that it’s easy for one to forget that other types of harassment also exist.

For example, racial harassment.

Since we are but a week away from Christmas, I thought it appropriate to use a holiday-time example to illustrate.

Monday, August 14, 2017

When you discover that you employ a Nazi


In the wake of Friday and Saturday’s horrific, evil events in Charlottesville, the twitter account YesYoureRacist posted many riot photos and identified many of the rioters. And, as a result, some have lost their jobs.


Question: Does one participating in a Nazi rally enjoy any job protections from said participation?

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Apparently the labor rights of strikers trump the non-harassment rights of employees


There exists only one workplace environment in which a white employee can keep his job after yelling the following at a group of African-American employees.
  • “Hey, did you bring enough KFC for everyone?” 
  • “Go back to Africa, you bunch of f***ing losers.”
  • “Hey anybody smell that? I smell fried chicken and watermelon.”
A gold star for you if you answered a picket line, when the comments are made by striking workers and are directed at a group of replacements crossing said picket line. Or at least this is the majority finding of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. v. NLRB [pdf].

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

A reminder that any employee can sue you at any time


Another obvious lesson
Today’s lesson may seem obvious, but it is one worth repeating: any employee, no matter the on-the-job misconduct, can sue you. Filing a lawsuit is one thing, succeeding on that lawsuit is an entirely different animal.

Case in point: Robinson v. Klosterman Baking Co. (S.D. Ohio 7/5/17).

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Federal judge takes NLRB to task for rules that protect racist and sexist workplace misconduct


Of all of the decisions the NLRB has handed down in the past eight years, those that let striking employees lob racists and sexist bombs at replacement workers crossing picket lines are the most offensive to me.

Consolidated Communications v. NLRB (D.C. Cir. 9/13/16) is one such case.

More compelling than the decision, however, is the concurring opinion written by Judge Patricia Millett, in which she calls on the NLRB to carry out its mission to protect the rights of all employees, not just those who happen to be walking a picket line. How can a picket line magically convert misconduct that is “illegal in every other corner of the workplace” into the “unpleasantries that are just part and parcel of the contentious environment and heated language that ordinarily accompany strike activity,” she asks? 

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Just because it might be legal doesn’t make it right


The plaintiff in Tennial v. UPS [pdf], a former UPS manager, claimed that his manager placed him on a performance improvement plan, and ultimately demoted him, because of his race. In support of this claim, he relied in part on: 1) his manager’s alleged use of the word “n*****” in referencing another, nonparty UPS employee, and (2) a district president’s use of the word “boys” in reference to Tennial’s black coworkers.