The Employer Handbook

Articles Posted in Race

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Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

It’s bad enough when a federal judge refers to a plaintiff-employee’s behavior towards her manager as “harassing, stalking, disturbing, and menacing.” And, I apologize that I didn’t have enough room in the title of this blog post to mention the plaintiff’s profanity and fighting at work, or her arrests for drunk driving and drug possession.

So, you’d think that the plaintiff would cut and run after the district court dismissed her claims for pregnancy, sex, race, and religious discrimination claims. But, the plaintiff who referred to herself at work as “crazy” and “psycho” decided to appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

And how do you think that went for the plaintiff? Continue reading

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restaurant-seating

Image Credit: PeakPX.com – License to use Creative Commons Zero – CC0

Every so often, I receive a Google Alert about some knucklehead who writes something inappropriate — usually a racial slur — on a restaurant receipt. Often, the knucklehead tries to explain her or his actions away as a joke.

Continue reading

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A lawyer claimed that his employer had discriminated against him based on his race, color, gender, and age, when it terminated his employment and filled a position nearly identical to that which he held prior to his termination with a younger, African-American woman. So he sued.

Oh, I forgot one important fact. By the time he sued, the lawyer-plaintiff had already signed a severance agreement and release (the “Release”). Continue reading

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Highway Patrol Images [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Maybe you’ve been reading this employment law blog for years. Or today could be your first time here. (What took you so long?) You may be a licensed attorney, an HR professional, or just a blog groupie on the dark path to a restraining order. Whatever your background and experience, I’m guessing that you can determine whether the plaintiff I’m about to describe to you, a former Ohio police trooper, has a viable claim for race discrimination. Continue reading

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Seal of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.svg

By U.S. Government – Extracted from PDF file here., Public Domain, Link

On April 25, 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The EEOC believes that the use of criminal record history and other background checks can have a disparate impact by disproportionately screening out certain minorities without any business-related need.

After several potholes and speedbumps trying to enforce its guidance in the courtroom against employer-defendants, the EEOC has finally won a big race. Continue reading

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Image Credit: YouTube.com

Do you know that scene from Lethal Weapon 2? The one where Joe Pesci (Leo Getz) tells the representative from the South African embassy to convince his friend Danny Glover (‘Alphonse’) not to move to South Africa because he’s black.

I’ll pause for a sec while you watch it.

Continue reading

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Image Credit: Photofunia.com

Yesterday, I blogged here about a black man who was fired for repeating a racial slur directed at him as he told the person to stop. According to multiple reports, his employer’s position was that it had a zero-tolerance policy on racial slurs in the workplace — inexcusable, regardless of context.

Well, the school hired him back.

Still, I asked readers of this blog how they would have handled a similar situation in their workplace. Continue reading

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diploma

Image Credit: Publicdomainfiles.com (http://www.publicdomainfiles.com/show_file.php?id=13929356417087)

I can often draw upon my years of experience as an employment lawyer to predict from reading the first paragraph of a federal court opinion how the court is going to decide the discrimination claim before it. Continue reading

“Doing What’s Right – Not Just What’s Legal”