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.
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 person, either in the form of overtly anti-Semitic comments or what she refers to as microaggressions. Among them, the plaintiff claimed that her supervisor told her that she “does not want an old Jewish woman running a multicultural department.”
But here’s the thing.
You develop policies and train everyone — especially your managers — on how to handle situations like the example I have for you today.
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 to undermine civil rights protections.” Continue reading
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?
Continue reading
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 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison. In Hardison, the Court concluded that Title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964 does not require a religious accommodation if it results in more than a de minimis cost to the employer, i.e., an undue hardship.
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Continue reading
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 if I told you that the man’s son also worked for the same employer, objected to attending the same training modules, and eventually sued the same employer for race and religious discrimination? Continue reading
I read a survey last night that blew my mind 🤯 Continue reading
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. Continue reading
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 what could be the biggest employment law decision of 2023. Continue reading
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