Category: Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is an important and ongoing strategy of any HR plan. Ensuring that your company supports hiring, engaging, and retaining diverse workers with varied backgrounds will set your company up for long-term success and an increased bottom line. This topic offers the latest strategies for talent management, key insights from diversity leaders, case studies on D&I in the workplace, and more.

National Origin Discrimination and English-Only Rules

By Troy D. Thompson In fiscal year (FY) 2009, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received 11,134 charges involving claims of national origin discrimination ― an approximate 57 percent increase since 1999. Although the EEOC has not yet disclosed its statistics for FY 2010, all indications are that these claims continue to rise. Given that […]

EEOC Complaints Reach All-Time High

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency responsible for the enforcement of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, recently released its statistical data on fiscal year 2010 filings. The data indicated that workplace discrimination complaints against private sector firms reached an all-time high in 2010. The Commission reported that filings with the federal agency […]

Employee’s own testimony sinks her case

By Richard L. Rainey We often tell clients that not all lawsuits are filed because an employee has evidence of discrimination or believes she was discriminated against. Rather, sometimes they’re filed because the employee thinks she was treated unfairly. That concept is illustrated in a recent case out of Durham. Background Iretha Lawrence, an African […]

Study Explores Gender Gap in Law Firms

The Social Science Research Network recently completed a study examining the gender gap in partner compensation in America’s law firms. The study, entitled Statistical Evidence on the Gender Gap in Law Firm Partner Compensation, compiled the largest research sample on the gender gap in compensation at the 200 largest law firms (“Am Law 200”) by […]

CCE Offers Report on Adverse Impact Analyses

The Washington, D.C., nonprofit research and think tank organization, the Center for Corporate Equality (CCE) has issued a detailed report on “best practices” for conducting the adverse impact analyses, which are used to detect and sometimes litigate employment discrimination claims. The editors of Federal Employment Law Insider interviewed David Cohen, who is on the board […]

EEOC Makes Case for Obesity Discrimination

By Timothy M. Barber The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently sued an employer in New Orleans, Louisiana, claiming it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by firing a woman because she was obese. In the past, an employee’s obesity didn’t constitute a “disability” within the meaning of the ADA. However, in light of […]

2010 Census Results

The Constitution mandates that the United State’s residents be counted every 10 years to determine the number of seats each state receives in the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. Census Bureau has begin releasing the results from the 2010 Census, and here are the first strokes in the “new portrait of America” it paints: […]

When Religion and Politics Meet at Work

An old maxim says “never talk about religion or politics,” but how realistic (or even desirable) is that advice? And as the worlds of religion and politics collide, talk of one often crosses the line into speech about the other. While employers don’t want to trample on anyone’s right of free speech, they also can’t […]

OFCCP Stepping Up Enforcement

Earlier this year, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which is responsible for ensuring that entities doing business with the federal government take affirmative action as required by Executive Order 11246, released its fiscal year 2011 budget request and enforcement initiatives. OFCCP director Patricia A. Shiu said she plans to implement full-scale aggressive […]

Christian Charity Immune from Religious Discrimination Claim

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on an individual’s religion. Unless, that is, your employer is a religious organization. When three former employees sued World Vision, the question was whether the Christian charity qualified for the exemption. In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which […]