If you are 40 years of age or older, and you have been harmed by a decision affecting your employment, you may have suffered unlawful age discrimination. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) is a federal law that protects individuals 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age. Here are some examples of potentially unlawful age discrimination:
You didn’t get hired because the employer wanted a younger-looking person to do the job.
You received a negative job evaluation because you weren’t “flexible” in taking on new projects.
You were fired because your boss wanted to keep younger workers.
You were turned down for a promotion, which went to someone younger hired from outside the company, because the boss says the company “needs new blood.”
When company layoffs are announced, most of the persons laid off were older, while younger workers with less seniority and less on-the-job experience were kept on.
Before you were fired, your supervisor made age-related remarks about you, such as that you were a “dinosaur,” “over-the-hill,” or “ancient.”
Additional protections apply in conjunction with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Under the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (“OWBPA”), individuals age 40 and over must be given 21 days to consider any agreement that waives their rights under the ADEA, as well as an additional seven days after signing to revoke the agreement. As a result, the OWBPA has a substantial impact on severance agreements. Although a severance agreement should never be signed without first consulting an attorney, an individual who has already signed may still be able to preserve an age-discrimination claim by timely exercising the right to revoke. Accordingly, any severance agreement must be reviewed carefully to ensure strict compliance with the OWBPA’s revocation requirements.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race. It makes it unlawful for employers to take adverse actions based on race in hiring, termination, or any other terms and conditions of employment, including promotions, compensation, and access to job opportunities.
Title VII also prohibits employers from making employment decisions based on stereotypes or assumptions about the abilities, traits, or performance of individuals associated with particular racial groups. It bars both intentional discrimination and facially neutral policies or practices that are not job-related and that disproportionately disadvantage workers of certain races.
For example, it is illegal to segregate employees of a certain race from employees or from customer contact. It is likewise unlawful to assign employees who are predominantly minorities to minority-concentrated worksites or geographic areas, to exclude minorities from particular positions, or to group or classify jobs in a manner that results in certain positions being predominantly held by minorities.
Therefore, an assignment or placement selected because of your race that segregates you or negatively affects your pay, status in the company, or ability to advance would be against the law. If you have been rejected for employment, fired or otherwise harmed in your employment because of your race, then you may have suffered race discrimination.
Sex or gender discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment specifically because an individual is a woman or a man. If you have been rejected for employment, fired, or otherwise harmed in employment because of your sex or gender, then you may have suffered sex or gender discrimination.
It is against the law for an employer to intentionally pay women and men different wages for the same work, if it is only because of their gender. It is illegal to refuse to hire a woman for a “man’s job” or hire a man for a “woman’s job.” Men and women are entitled to equal consideration for hiring and promotions.
In everyday language as well as in the law, the terms “gender” and “sex” are used inter-changeably, but the two terms have different meanings. Social scientists use the term “sex” to refer to a person’s biological or anatomical identity as male or female, while reserving the term “gender” for the collection of characteristics that are culturally associated with maleness or femaleness. Discrimination is generally illegal regardless of whether it is based on sex, or gender or both sex and gender. Pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment are also considered forms of sex discrimination under the law.
The Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal for private employers, state and local governments, employment agencies, and labor unions from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions and privileges of employment.
Disability discrimination includes treating individuals differently in employment because of their disability, perceived disability, or association with an individual with a disability. Some examples of disability discrimination may include:
Discriminating on the basis of physical or mental disability in various aspects of employment, including recruitment, firing, hiring, training, job assignments, promotions, pay, benefits, lay off, leave and all other employment-related activities.
Harassing an employee based on his or her disability.
Asking job applicants questions about their past or current medical conditions or requiring job applicants to take medical exams.
Creating or maintaining a workplace that includes substantial physical barriers to the movement of people with physical disabilities.
Refusing to provide reasonable accommodation to employees with physical or mental disability that would allow them to work.
You are also protected if you are a victim of discrimination because of your association (family, business, social or other relationship) with an individual with a disability.
Religious discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment because of their religion, their religious beliefs and practices, and/or their request for accommodation (a change in a workplace rule or policy) of their religious beliefs and practices. It also includes treating individuals differently in their employment because of their lack of religious belief or practice.
If you have been rejected for employment, fired, harassed or otherwise harmed in your employment because of your religion, your religious beliefs and practices, and/or your request for accommodation of their religious beliefs and practices, you may have suffered unlawful religious discrimination.
Under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), it is illegal to discriminate against employees because of genetic information. Title II of GINA prohibits the use of genetic information in making employment decisions, restricts employers from requesting, requiring, or purchasing genetic information, and strictly limits the disclosure of genetic information. It is also unlawful for a covered entity to disclose genetic information about applicants, employees, or members. Covered entities must keep genetic information confidential and in a separate medical file.
Genetic information includes information about an individual’s genetic tests and the genetic tests of an individual’s family members, as well as information about the manifestation of a disease or disorder in an individual’s family members (i.e. family medical history). Family medical history is included in the definition of genetic information because it is often used to determine whether someone has an increased risk of getting a disease, disorder, or condition in the future.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that protects individuals from discrimination based upon national origin.
National origin discrimination is treating an individual differently in their employment because of the individual’s country of origin. If you have been rejected for employment, fired, or otherwise harmed in your employment because of your birthplace, ancestry, culture, or way of speaking (if it’s common to a specific ethnic group), you may have suffered unlawful national origin discrimination. It is also against the law to discriminate against an employee because of:
marriage to, or association with, persons of a national origin group;
membership in, or association with, ethnic promotion groups;
attendance or participation in schools, churches, temples or mosques generally associated with a national origin group; or
a family name associated with a national origin group.
Some workers experiencing national origin discrimination may also experience other forms of illegal discrimination as well, such as discrimination based on immigration or citizenship status discrimination, race or religion.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), is a federal law covering almost all immigration matters. It protects individuals from employment discrimination based on immigration or citizenship status, and prohibits document abuse discrimination, which occurs when employers request more or different documents than are required to verify employment eligibility and identity, reject reasonably genuine-looking documents, or specify certain documents over others.
Pregnancy discrimination is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Pregnancy discrimination in the workplace occurs when an employer discriminates on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related conditions. Pregnancy discrimination may include denial of time off or reasonable accommodations for pregnant employees, firing or demoting a pregnant employee, forced time off or restrictions on work, and any other negative employment action taken because of an employee’s pregnancy or related medical condition. Pregnancy discrimination can include all of the following actions by an employer:
refusing to hire a pregnant applicant;
firing or demoting a pregnant employee;
denying the same or a similar job to a pregnant employee when she returns from a pregnancy-related leave;
treating a pregnant employee differently than other temporarily disabled employees; or
failing to grant a male employee health insurance coverage for his wife’s pregnancy related conditions if a female employee’s husband has comprehensive health insurance coverage through the same company plan.
Under the law, pregnancy is considered a temporary disability, as are related medical conditions such as severe morning sickness, doctor-ordered bed rest, childbirth, recovery from childbirth, and any other related medical condition. Your employer must therefore give pregnant employees the same treatment and benefits that it gives to employees with other temporary disabilities.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) 38 U.S.C. Sects. 4301-4333 prohibits discrimination against covered service members in initial employment, reemployment, retention in employment, promotion, or any benefit of employment by an employer on the basis of membership in a uniformed service application for membership, performance of service, application for service, or obligation. The law also provides enhanced protection for disabled veterans, requiring employers to make reasonable efforts to accommodate the disability. Finally, USERRA also has, like the other federal anti-discrimination laws, a broad retaliation provision.
Sexual orientation discrimination means treating someone differently solely because of his or her sexual orientation: lesbian, gay (homosexual), bisexual, or straight (heterosexual). This discrimination may also occur because of a perception of someone’s sexual orientation, whether that perception is correct or not.
Currently, sexual orientation discrimination is not covered by the federal laws that generally prohibit discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, and disability for private employers. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, a law that would have prohibited discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, failed to pass the House of Representatives in 2014.
However, many federal government employees are covered by provisions in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which prohibits sexual orientation discrimination. Additionally, 22 states and the District of Columbia, as well as several hundred municipalities (counties and cities) have laws that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination. 20 of these states prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in both private and government workplaces. This number is constantly changing, so you should also check with an attorney to get more information about the law in your state.