Category: Sex Discrimination

Quirky Question #286: Best Practices on Restroom Access and Terminology for Transgender Employees

Quirky Question #286: Best Practices on Restroom Access and Terminology for Transgender Employees

Question: There has been a lot of news coverage lately on restroom policies related to transgender employees.  Can you provide some guidance on how to structure our restroom-use policies to be both lawful and respectful of all employees?  More generally, can you help me understand the appropriate, respectful terminology in this area?  I certainly don’t want to offend anyone on purpose,...

Wal-Mart v. Dukes, No Glue in Aisle 23

Wal-Mart v. Dukes, No Glue in Aisle 23

Walmart v. Dukes, No Glue in Aisle 23 The most sweeping putative employment-discrimination class action in history was not too big to fail. The United States Supreme Court has rejected an effort by three female employees of Wal-Mart to represent a class of some 1.6 million women who had been employed by the company at its 3,400 stores nationwide at...

Quirky Question # 158, Reporting Harassment to the Harasser

Quirky Question # 158, Reporting Harassment to the Harasser

Question: Our company has a sexual harassment policy.  The policy makes clear that an employee who feels as though he or she has been harassed should report the problematic conduct to our Director of Human Resources.  The policy also provides that, if more convenient, or for any other reason, the employee also can report the harassing behaviors to anyone else...

Favoritism or Discrimination? Quirky Question # 149

Favoritism or Discrimination? Quirky Question # 149

Quirky Question # 149: A female employee of our company filed a Charge with the EEOC that she has been discriminated against because one of our executives is involved in a relationship with a subordinate female employee.  Our employee argues that this person is receiving preferential treatment and that she is being deprived of opportunities as a result.  She claims...

Quirky Question # 145, Marital Status Discrimination

Quirky Question # 145, Marital Status Discrimination

Quirky Question #145 I know you’ve written about the issue of terminating family members in other Blog posts.  And I know you recently discussed the nuances of terminating a family member in a closely held company.  We have a more vanilla issue. Can we terminate a spouse of another employee we are terminating?  We just don’t think it would be...

Title II of the Genetic Information Act of 2008

Title II of the Genetic Information Act of 2008

Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act On May 21, 2008, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, also referred to as GINA, was signed into law.  GINA includes two titles providing individuals with federal protections against genetic discrimination in health insurance and employment. Title I addresses the use of genetic information in health insurance and provides that health...