For example, employers may not pass up older, more qualified candidates for a promotion in favor of a younger, less-qualified employee if the decision is simply based on age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) protects many workers aged 40 and up from unfair workplace treatment. Title VII also covers unfair treatment based on an individual’s association with a gender-based organization.Įxamples of gender discrimination may include a refusal to hire women, lack of advancement opportunities based on sex or sexual orientation, or firing someone because they are members of the LGBTQ community. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, including gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Forcing an employee to change offices might not necessarily be workplace discrimination, but it could be considered workplace harassment depending on the circumstances. Such actions might include moving an employee from a coveted corner office to a small cubicle in the basement because the employee revealed that they are part of the LGBTQ community. Discrimination relates to the actions mentioned above, whereas harassment can include a host of other actions taken against an employee. The employer’s perceived belief about the employee’s religious association is enough to incite a claim.Īnother critical issue is whether the employer’s action is workplace discrimination versus workplace harassment. This would be workplace discrimination even though the employee is not Jewish. The employer believes that Jewish people are not hard workers, and because the employer believes that the employee is Jewish, the employer refuses to promote the employee. The employee is Christian, but their boss doesn’t realize the employee’s true religious preference. Let’s say an employer is under the impression that the employee is Jewish. It is important to note that the employee does not necessarily have to belong to a protected class to claim workplace discrimination. Instead, the actions against the employees were directly associated with a protected class. These examples show actions taken against an employee unrelated in any way to the employee’s work-related performance. An employee who has worked for the office for thirty years and is over retirement age may request the opportunity to earn training related to their job but be denied because the employer deems the employee too old to invest in any longer. These might include a situation where an hourly employee’s pay rate is reduced because she is pregnant. Hiring and promotion decisions can sometimes be pretty obvious, but there are less apparent forms of workplace discrimination.
The boss essentially promotes a male employee over the young, married woman because she is a woman. For example, an employee who requested a promotion may be denied the promotion based solely on the fact that the employee is a young, married woman, and the boss instead believes that men should be their family’s breadwinners. This unfair treatment may be evident in numerous scenarios. This unfair treatment usually pertains to actions such as hiring, promotions, employment benefits, training opportunities, job assignments, or salary. More specifically, this means that an employee is treated unfairly, differently, or unfavorably compared to other employees because of that employee’s race, ethnicity, gender identification, sexual orientation, or other protected class. What Is Workplace Discrimination?Įssentially, workplace discrimination is discrimination that occurs in the workplace. In that case, that might be a different scenario that falls under workplace discrimination for a disability.
However, suppose individuals claim they were discriminated against because they are disabled and require a service dog. In that case, they likely won’t have a claim for workplace discrimination because favoring dogs over cats is not a protected class. Suppose individuals claim they were discriminated against because they are dog lovers and not cat lovers like their boss. However, federal law prohibits discrimination against employees based upon the following protected classes: Not everyone can claim that they were illegally discriminated against, meaning sometimes it is not necessarily illegal for an employer to treat an employee unfavorably.
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