Having done this now for over two decades, I understand how employers can often make employees feel underappreciated and even wronged. But not every slight and annoyance is tantamount to discrimination or retaliation. In a recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the plaintiff, a special-education teacher, appealed the dismissal…
Last night, I read a decision from a federal court in New York involving a plaintiff, who is Jewish, who claimed that her employer and her supervisor discriminated against her based on her religion. The plaintiff identified many incidents that, in her view, demonstrate bias against her as a Jewish…
You develop policies and train everyone — especially your managers — on how to handle situations like the example I have for you today. This lawsuit involves a plaintiff who filed a complaint — remember, these are just allegations — stating that she routinely interacted with a coworker with female…
Yesterday, on the same day that some of the Supreme Court noted that Congress hadn’t changed Title VII’s undue hardship standard for religious accommodations, the House and Senate reintroduced the Do No Harm Act, which the bill sponsors claim will “address the increasing use of religious freedom as a justification…
It’s 2023. When are employees going to learn that while the First Amendment does guarantee freedom of speech, there is no constitutional right to a job, and employers don’t have to tolerate employee hate speech? Our recent addition to the unemployment line is a semi-professional hockey player in Illinois. He…
Last May, I wrote about this religious discrimination case involving an employer’s duty to accommodate a plaintiff who needed Sundays off to observe his religion. The court decided the case in favor of the employer, which led to this appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in August, asking that it revisit its…
Yesterday, I wrote about a man who claimed that his employer retaliated against him by forcing him to resign after he objected to attending workplace training on anti-racism and gender identity. It was a good story. We employment lawyers have plenty of them. But, perhaps, it wasn’t great. But what…
I read a survey last night that blew my mind 🤯 In November, ResumeBuilder.com surveyed 1,131 U.S. hiring managers and recruiters about their views of Jewish individuals and their perception of antisemitism in the workplace. Of those surveyed – remember these are the people making the hiring decisions — 29%…
Two women who worked for a home healthcare company in Tennessee claimed that their religion motivated their employer to fire them. But from the jump, the plaintiffs had a problem. The complaint that they filed in court belied their claims. According to the Sixth Circuit’s opinion, the defendant hired the…
Image Credit: Photofunia.com After a ten-day vacation trip with my family (IYKYK) onboard the S.S. Blog Cruiser Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas, I’m back to the reality of practicing employment law and blogging about it. Today, let’s play some tunes as we gaze into the crystal ball and predict…