Discrimination

  • June 12, 2025

    High Court Levels ADA Playing Field For Disabled Students

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled students claiming disability discrimination in public schools should not face a higher standard of proof than plaintiffs in other Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act lawsuits.

  • June 11, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Says VA Worker Must Submit To Random Drug Tests

    The Federal Circuit has upheld an arbitration decision requiring a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employee, allegedly caught using marijuana on the job, to release her medical records and submit to random drug testing as part of a slate of conditions for her to return to work, finding the arbitrator's award acceptable.

  • June 11, 2025

    UNC Hospital System Must Face Ex-Resident's Bias Suit

    The University of North Carolina's hospital system must face a discrimination lawsuit filed by a fired surgical resident, a North Carolina federal judge ruled Wednesday, tossing the system's motion to dismiss claims that the discharge decision was motivated by bias against the resident's mental health conditions.

  • June 11, 2025

    Credit Agricole Boss Can't Knock Out Ex-Banker's Bias Suit

    A New York federal judge narrowed but declined to completely toss a bias suit from a Latinx Credit Agricole trader who said his boss repeatedly disrespected him, handed his responsibilities to a white trader and then tanked his performance review after he complained. 

  • June 11, 2025

    Trump's Anti-DEI Tack Merits Revisiting Voluntary Bias Audits

    The Trump administration's willingness to target alleged discrimination stemming from efforts to diversify workplaces doesn't rewrite the rules for internal audits looking to ferret out bias, experts say, but employers would still be wise to give their practices a fresh look.

  • June 11, 2025

    8th Circ. Probes NLRB's Process In Home Depot 'BLM' Ruling

    An Eighth Circuit panel questioned Wednesday the process behind the National Labor Relations Board's ruling that Home Depot illegally forced out a worker for displaying the letters "BLM" on their apron but didn't tip its hand on whether this move was within the company's rights.

  • June 11, 2025

    Walmart Pharmacist Says Age, Disability Bias Led To Firing

    A former pharmacy manager at a Massachusetts Walmart said he suffered age and disability discrimination following a stroke, then was wrongfully fired after more than 20 years with the retailer.

  • June 11, 2025

    8th Circ. Weighs Protections For Principal's LGTBQ+ Support

    The Eighth Circuit closely scrutinized a former public school principal's free speech case over her advocacy for LGBTQ+ students Wednesday, with the judges hunting for the line at which her campaign may have crossed into protected activity.

  • June 11, 2025

    Siemens Unit Settles Calif. Watchdog's Racial Slur Probe

    California's civil rights enforcement agency said Wednesday that a railway technology company had settled an investigation into a worker's claims that he was wrongly suspended and escorted off the job after complaining about co-workers using racial slurs.

  • June 11, 2025

    Oklahoma Pot Agency Wants Claims Tossed In Retaliation Suit

    The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority is urging a federal court to throw out Title VII and Age Discrimination in Employment Act claims in a suit by a former contract monitor who alleges she was fired for whistleblowing.

  • June 11, 2025

    DOL, EEOC Noms To Go Before Senate Panel

    President Donald Trump's nominees for key roles in the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will stand before a Senate committee next week, the panel said Wednesday.

  • June 11, 2025

    Disney's Hiring Is Biased Toward Immigrants, Calif. Court Told

    The Walt Disney Co. illegally fired a human resources specialist because she raised concerns about what she saw as the company's practices of primarily hiring immigrant workers while disproportionately firing African American employees, she told a California state court.

  • June 11, 2025

    Weinstein Convicted Of 1 Charge In Mixed, Partial Verdict

    A Manhattan state court jury on Wednesday convicted movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexually assaulting a production assistant, acquitted him of assaulting a former model and indicated it had so far failed to reach a verdict on a charge alleging he raped an actress.

  • June 10, 2025

    Tech Recruiter Settles DOJ Claims It Favored Visa Workers

    A San Francisco Bay Area-based technology recruiting company agreed Tuesday to pay civil penalties and change its recruiting practices to resolve allegations it illegally preferred H-1B visa holders over U.S. workers, marking the government's renewed push under the Trump administration to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act against companies favoring foreign workers.

  • June 10, 2025

    Ga. Schools Must Face Ex-Principal's Suit Over BLM Support

    A federal judge won't let a Georgia school district out of claims that it forced out a Black former principal over his vocal support for the Black Lives Matter movement, ruling that like the school board's individual members and ex-superintendent before it, the district failed to raise its defenses when it had the opportunity to do so.

  • June 10, 2025

    Atty Accuses City Of 'Game-y' Tactics In Race Bias Settlement

    A North Carolina employment attorney accused the city of Charlotte in federal court Tuesday of being "game-y" by trying to change a Black fire chief's racial bias settlement after both sides agreed to certain terms, saying she wouldn't make him sign something that didn't reflect those promises.

  • June 10, 2025

    Worker's Suit Over Weed Firing Gets Thrown Out

    A construction worker can't sue his employer for wrongful termination on claims that his supervisor wrongly accused him of smoking marijuana while on the job, a Virginia federal judge has ruled, saying state law allows companies to fire workers even on untrue allegations of drug use.

  • June 10, 2025

    Pa. University Seeks Toss Of Sergeant's Retaliation Claims

    The University of Scranton wants a Pennsylvania federal judge to dismiss retaliation and disability bias allegations from a police sergeant who alleged he was fired because he had cancer, telling the district court that the worker hadn't put up enough facts to support some of his claims.

  • June 10, 2025

    Black Honda Worker's Promotion Bias Suit Shipped To Ala.

    Honda's manufacturing arm can send to Alabama a proposed class action alleging its opaque promotional practices unlawfully prevent Black workers from moving up, an Ohio federal judge ruled, saying the worker leading the suit likely would have stayed in the South had he received positions he sought.

  • June 10, 2025

    Brokerage Firm Fired CFO For Starting Family, She Tells Court

    A cloud-based real estate brokerage firm's former chief financial officer was unfairly accused of racking up $17,000 in personal expenses on a company card to justify her termination after her maternity leave ended, she told a New York federal court Tuesday.

  • June 10, 2025

    Feds Say NH Trans Sports Ban Suit Lacks Real Injury

    The U.S. government hopes to escape a New Hampshire lawsuit challenging both state and federal policies prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in women's sports, saying the complaint shows only "speculative future injury."

  • June 10, 2025

    Ala. Mayor Defeats Former Police Chief's Race Bias Suit

    The mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, escaped a lawsuit claiming he harassed a police chief and forced him to resign because he refused to give preferential treatment to Black employees, as a federal judge said there was no evidence of a campaign to oust the law enforcement official.

  • June 10, 2025

    Union, Philharmonic Fight Suits From Suspended Musicians

    A musicians union has asked a New York federal judge to toss two suspended New York Philharmonic players' allegations that the union illegally dropped its fight for their reinstatement, saying it had good reason to abandon the mission after the full extent of their alleged sexual violence was revealed.

  • June 10, 2025

    GOP Lawmakers Launch Probe Into Harvard's Hiring Practices

    A group of House Republicans announced Tuesday that they are opening an investigation into Harvard University's hiring policies to probe whether the institution is shirking Title VII by giving preferences to marginalized applicants when recruiting for open roles.

  • June 10, 2025

    3 Lessons From 3rd Circ. Reviving Fire Dept. Beard Battle

    A recent Third Circuit decision in favor of a Christian fire department worker who wanted to grow facial hair despite the department's no-beard policy holds lessons for employers about handling religious accommodation requests. Here, Law360 looks at three of those lessons.

Expert Analysis

  • Vaccine Accommodation Suits Show Risk Of Blanket Policies

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    A recent federal class action alleging Tyson Foods inappropriately applied a one-size-fits-all response to Arkansas employees seeking religious COVID-19 vaccine exemptions, with similar suits going back to 2022, should remind employers to individually consider every worker request for a religious accommodation, say Christopher Pardo and Elizabeth Sherwood at Hunton.

  • Workplace Challenges Amid Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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    Recent tension over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has caused challenges in the employment sphere, sparking the question of whether employees can be legally disciplined for speaking out on issues related to the conflict, which depends on various circumstances, says Alok Nadig at Sanford Heisler.

  • Water Cooler Talk: Insights On Noncompetes From 'The Office'

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    Troutman Pepper’s Tracey Diamond, Evan Gibbs, Constance Brewster and Jim Earle compare scenarios from “The Office” to the complex world of noncompetes and associated tax issues, as employers are becoming increasingly hesitant to look to noncompete provisions amid a potential federal ban.

  • High Court's Job Bias Questions May Predict Title VII Ruling

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    Employers may be able to predict — and prepare for — important changes to workplace discrimination laws by examining the questions the U.S. Supreme Court asked during oral arguments for Muldrow v. St. Louis, where several justices seemed to favor a low threshold for Title VII suits, says Wendy LaManque at Pryor Cashman.

  • 2 Cases Highlight NJ Cannabis Employment Law Uncertainties

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    More than two years after its enactment, the employee protections and employer obligations in New Jersey's Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance and Marketplace Modernization Act remain unsettled, and two recent lawsuits draw attention to the law's enforceability and its intersection with federal law, say Ruth Rauls at Saul Ewing and David White at Seton Hall.

  • 3 Compliance Reminders For Calif. Employers In 2024

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    As we enter into the new year, several recent updates to California employment law — including minimum wage and sick leave requirements — necessitate immediate compliance actions for employers, says Daniel Pyne at Hopkins & Carley.

  • Sex Harassment Arbitration Exemption: Devil Is In The Date

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    A Federal Arbitration Act amendment that exempts workplace sexual harassment claims from arbitration is muddled in ongoing confusion about its chronological reach — and as many such cases begin to run up against applicable statutes of limitations, the clock is ticking for claimants to bring their actions in court, says Abe Melamed at Signature Resolution.

  • Top 10 Employer Resolutions For 2024

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    From technological leaps to sea changes in labor policy to literal sea changes, 2024 provides opportunities for employers to face big-picture questions that will shape their business for years to come, say Allegra Lawrence-Hardy and Lisa Haldar at Lawrence & Bundy.

  • Lessons Learned From 2023's Top FMLA Decisions

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    This year’s most significant Family and Medical Leave Act decisions offer lessons on the act's technical requirements, including the definition of serious health condition, compliance with notice requirements and whether it is permissible to give an employee substantial extra work upon their return from leave, says Linda Dwoskin at Dechert.

  • Artificial Intelligence Is In Need Of Regulation — But How?

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    Since most of the artificial intelligence-related laws in 2023 were part of more extensive consumer privacy law, the U.S. still has a lot of work to do to build consensus on how to oversee AI, and even who should do the regulating, before moving forward on specific and reasonable guidelines as AI's capabilities grow, say Nick Toufexis and Paul Saputo at Saputo Toufexis.

  • Lessons Learned From 2023's Top ADA Decisions

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    This year saw the courts delving into the complexities of employee accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the post-pandemic workplace, going beyond bright-line rules with fact-intensive inquiries that are likely to create uncertainty for employers, says Linda Dwoskin at Dechert.

  • What's Ahead For Immigrant Employee Rights Enforcement

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    The U.S. Department of Justice’s increased enforcement related to immigration-based employment discrimination is coupled with pending constitutional challenges to administrative tribunals, suggesting employers should leverage those headwinds when facing investigations or class action-style litigation, say attorneys at Jones Day.

  • Top 10 Whistleblowing And Retaliation Events Of 2023

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and federal and state courts made 2023 another groundbreaking year for whistleblower litigation and retaliation developments, including the SEC’s massive whistleblower awards, which are likely to continue into 2024 and further incentivize individuals to submit tips, say attorneys at Proskauer.