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By Jennifer Melton On January 11, 2012, Pepsi Beverages Company agreed to pay more than $3 million to resolve race discrimination claims filed in 2006 by more than 300 African American job applicants. The claims alleged that the company’s criminal background check policy (1) disproportionately excluded African Americans from employment with Pepsi and (2) violated […]
Last month, Diversity Insight writer Tammy Binford explored the legal issues involved when employees must juggle work and special-needs parenting collide. Now, she looks at how employers can help their employees balance work and their obligations as parents of special needs children. By Tammy Binford Parents of children with special needs often look for support […]
By Keith Moorman With the steady flow of news putting religious issues in the spotlight, it’s a good time to review the requirements regarding religion in the workplace. Religion and Private Employers Although the U.S. Constitution prohibits governments from interfering with the free exercise of religion, it doesn’t dictate how a private employer must deal […]
By Jeremy M. Brenner The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state employer such as a university from discriminating against applicants and current employees based on their political beliefs or affiliations except in very limited instances. If an applicant or employee can demonstrate that her political views or associations caused a state employer […]
According to the 2010 Hate Crime Statistics report released by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program late in 2011 the number of hate crimes reported nationwide in 2010 remained fairly steady from the previous year. Participating local law enforcement agencies reported a total of 6,628 incidents — up just slightly from the 6,604 incidents reported […]
By Tammy Binford It’s often easy for employers to be understanding when workers occasionally need to duck out of work early for a meeting at school or a trip to a child’s doctor. It happens to nearly every working parent once in a while. But what about an employee whose child has some kind of […]
By Diane Pietraszewski The vast majority of all equal employment opportunity lawsuits are filed by individual employees or job applicants. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) may file cases on behalf of individuals, but it rarely does so because of limited resources. To get more “bang” for its litigation bucks, the EEOC is increasingly turning […]
By Jeanine Poole It may seem that requiring a high-school diploma for a job is a correct answer. However, a recent “informal discussion letter” from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicates that you may need to do more studying before making that choice. Background In October 2011, the state of Tennessee wrote the EEOC, […]
On March 8, 1857, women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. In 1981, 124 years after that historic protest, Congress established National Women’s History Week to be commemorated the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Here are some facts about American women from […]
By Mark I. Schickman We have eliminated many forms of workplace discrimination and made great strides toward erasing others. Nonetheless, one form of discrimination ― “Beauty Bias,” as coined by Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode ― remains alive, well, and possibly inherent in the human condition. When babies are shown pictures of adults, they usually […]