Scheduling
Time & Attendance
Forecasting
Employee App
Payroll Integrations
Communications
Legal
By Jon Hyman
Apr. 8, 2014
In response to last Tuesday’s post on an Ohio case refusing to protect “sexual orientation” under Ohio’s sex-discrimination laws, Equal Employment Opportunities Commission Commissioner (and Twitter friend) Chai Feldblum recommended that I check out a recent decision from the District of Columbia, Terveer v. Billington.
In that case, Peter Terveer, a Library of Congress employee, sued his supervisor for sex discrimination, alleging that the supervisor had created “a hostile environment” by subjecting him to a slew of anti-gay comments.
The employer argued for the dismissal of Terveer’s complaint, since Title VII does not include protections against sexual-orientation discrimination. The court disagreed, and permitted Terveer’s case to proceed under Title VII’s protections from sex discrimination and religious discrimination:
Under Title VII, allegations that an employer is discriminating against an employee based on the employee’s non-conformity with sex stereotypes are sufficient to establish a viable sex discrimination claim.… Plaintiff has alleged that Defendant denied him promotions and created a hostile work environment because of Plaintiff’s nonconformity with male sex stereotypes.…
Title VII seeks to protect employees not only from discrimination on the basis of their religious beliefs, but also from forced religious conformity or adverse treatment because they do “not hold or follow [their] employer’s religious beliefs.” … [P]laintiffs state a claim of religious discrimination in situations where employers have fired or otherwise punished an employee because the employee’s personal activities or status—for example, divorcing or having an extramarital affair—failed to conform to the employer’s religious beliefs.… The Court sees no reason to create an exception to these cases for employees who are targeted for religious harassment due to their status as a homosexual individual.
This article at Slate.com argues that Terveer shows that anti-gay job discrimination is already illegal. To the contrary, the more prudent conclusion is that Terveer, when contrasted against Burns v. The Ohio St. Univ. College of Veterinary Medicine (the Ohio case I discussed last Tuesday), demonstrates that different courts can, and do, reach different conclusions on this issue. Instead of showing that anti-gay discrimination is already illegal, these cases illustrate the need to amend Title VII to make it absolutely clear that sexual-orientation discrimination is not only abhorrent, but is also illegal.
Come see what we’re building in the world of predictive employee scheduling, superior labor insights and next-gen employee apps. We’re on a mission to automate workforce management for hourly employees and bring productivity, optimization and engagement to the frontline.
Compliance
Minimum Wage by State in 2023 – All You Need to KnowSummary Twenty-three states and D.C. raised their minimum wage rates in 2023, effective January 1. Thr...
federal law, minimum wage, pay rates, state law, wage law compliance
Legal
New Labor Laws Taking Effect in 2023The new year is fast approaching, and with its arrival comes a host of new labor laws that will impact ...
labor laws, minimum wage, wage and hour law
Legal
Wage and Hour Laws in 2022: What Employers Need to KnowWhether a mom-and-pop shop with a handful of employees or a large corporation staffing thousands, compl...
compliance, wage and hour law