Earlier this year, Colorado joined a growing list of states that have banned natural hair discrimination. Colorado’s CROWN Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act) went
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A Cautionary Tale about Same Race Discrimination
A Black employee complains to Human Resources that her supervisor has directed racial slurs at her. The supervisor is Black too. Is this a defense to liability for the employer
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For Employers Facing a Discrimination Claim, Being Wrong Can Also Mean Being Right (or, at Least, Being Nondiscriminatory).
What happens if an employer takes adverse action against an employee based on a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason that later turns out to be wrong? Suppose, for example, an employer fires
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NJ Issues Guidance on Race Discrimination Based on Hairstyle
Recently, several jurisdictions have stated that discriminating against an employee on the basis of the employee’s hairstyle, where the hairstyle is closely associated with race, constitutes race discrimination. The New
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Changing Workplace Culture Requires Employers to Address Little and Big Problems
Our office was closed last Monday in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I was at the dog park talking to a woman I know who also happens to
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Employee Lawsuit Claims Discrimination Based on Her Husband’s Race (Or: Associational Race Discrimination 101)
Bloomberg BNA is out with a news story about a recent case filed in federal court in Georgia, which poses an interesting question: does Title VII protect an employee on
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Taming the (Missouri) Tiger: The Danger of Failing to Properly Respond to Complaints
This week the country was rocked by headlines of campus unrest at the University of Missouri that culminated in the resignation of Timothy Wolfe, President of the University System. Campus-wide
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Rachel Dolezal and the Quandary of “Perceived As” Discrimination
The story of Rachel Dolezal, the recently-deposed head of an NAACP chapter in Spokane, WA, ignited a media firestorm last week with regard to claims that she, a Caucasian, “identified”
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Despite Employment Discrimination Training, “Human Nature Often Rears Its Ugly Head”
Last week’s post about blatantly discriminatory job ads in New Zealand elicited a number of comments from folks who could not believe that such ads were actually published. To remind
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Taking the Trick out of Halloween
For some, Halloweeen is about cute children in adorable costumes. For others, Halloween conjures up images of witches, ghost, and goblins who, in the words of Shakespeare “Double, double toil
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