Articles Posted in Discrimination

In a tentative order issued last Friday, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge allowed a former Google employee's lawsuit alleging discrimination by the company against conservatives, men, white people, and people of Asian descent to go forward. The lead plaintiff, whose suit has been joined by a small number of other men, is a former Google engineer who was fired after he circulated an internal memo that was critical of the company's efforts to increase gender and racial diversity among its workforce, and suggested that the lack of female engineers in the profession had to do with biological differences.

New Jersey and other states are supporting the effort of a Navy veteran from Colorado to challenge the binary gender designations on passport applications. The case could affect how the federal government refers to non-binary individuals.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the city was justified in attempting to prevent sexual orientation discrimination by withholding referrals of foster children to agencies that do not work with same-sex parents. It did not find any religious persecution or bias that would make the policy unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

A New York tenant achieved an early victory in a lawsuit against his landlord based on harassment by a neighbor. This case should encourage landlords in New York and surrounding states to respond proactively to accusations of discrimination or harassment involving their tenants.

Earlier this month, the United States women’s soccer team filed a lawsuit in a California district court, alleging that U.S. Soccer’s codified policies and its actual practices discriminate against members of the women’s national team based on their gender. The claimed result is that female team members are paid less than similarly situated male soccer players on the U.S. men’s team, according to the complaint.

In its first decision from this term, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled earlier today that state and local governments must follow labor laws that ban age discrimination regardless of the number of their employees. Plaintiffs in Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido were two former Arizona firefighters who argued that the Mount Lemmon Fire District laid them off in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Because the fire department had fewer than 20 employees, the defendant argued that they were too small to qualify as an employer who had to comply with the law.

The ACLU in Michigan has filed a lawsuit on Rachel Peterson’s behalf against the supermarket company, Meijer, citing that Peterson was a victim of sex discrimination after her prescription was denied by a pharmacist at the Meijer store located in Poteskey. Rachel Peterson was prescribed Misoprostol by her doctor after suffering a miscarriage in July. She drove three hours to the Meijer store in Poteskey, but the pharmacist, Richard Kalkman, refused to provide her with the medication. Kalkman cited his Catholic beliefs as the reason behind his refusal; he thought that Peterson wanted to use the medication to terminate her pregnancy and did not accept Peterson's response that her doctor said the pregnancy was not viable. Peterson also stated that Kalkman neither let her speak with another pharmacist or a supervisor, nor did he allow her to transfer her prescription to another pharmacy. Peterson was on vacation at the time of the incident and drove back three hours to a pharmacy near her hometown to get the prescription filled.

On Saturday, October 6, 2018, U.S. Pastors Council and Texas Values filed multiple lawsuits in state and federal courts alleging that Christian businesses and churches may fire or not hire LGBTQ workers as a constitutional right. One of the filed lawsuits challenges the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating against job candidates and workers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.The two other filed suits challenge part of an Austin, TX city ordinance that prohibits employers from discriminating against all the protected classes outlined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as sexual orientation and gender identity.

A lawsuit has been filed in Kansas federal court challenging a state policy prohibiting gender marker changes on birth certificates for transgender people. Along with Tennessee and Ohio, Kansas is one of only three states in the country with such a ban. 

Recently, a group of women filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against Facebook, arguing that the social media platform and certain companies posting ads on it have engaged in gender discrimination. These companies used Facebook to advertise positions in occupations such as the trucking industry, but they allegedly…