Even an air-tight case of sexual harassment can be sabotaged if (1) the employer has a policy banning it and an effective mechanism for handling complaints, and (2) the victim refuses to cooperate in the investigation.

Rhonda Simpson was hired to work at a Big Lots store somewhere in Alabama, after a manager saw her at a fast food restaurant and thought she looked like Farrah Fawcett. She ...

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is dead again. Is there any federal law on same-sex harassment or discrimination? If so, what is it? Here are some scenarios that may be helpful in picking through this crazy extremely complex and rapidly transitioning area of the law. (Answers are provided after Scenario 6, below.)

The American Bar Association is still accepting nominations for ...

ROBIN'S NOTE: Thanks very much to Cara Crotty, head of our Affirmative Action practice group, who allowed me to share her insights about the President's Executive Order here on the blog. This will also be going out today via email as a Constangy Affirmative Action Alert. 

More than two years after expressly declining to do so, this past Monday, President Obama signed an Executive Order

This morning President Obama signed an Executive Order amending the 1965 Executive Order 11246. President Obama's EO prohibits discrimination and requires affirmative action by federal contractors based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (It isn't clear what the affirmative action obligation will mean.)

The President's EO also makes corresponding amendments to ...

As promised on Monday, here is my magnum opus regarding the EEOC's new Enforcement Guidance on Pregnancy Discrimination and Related Issues. (Next week, I'll try to get back to spurious sexual harassment lawsuits against Yahoo executives and gift cards to employees who don't go to the bathroom during the work day . . . all that really important stuff.)

This past Monday, July 14, a divided ...

Lovic Brooks, Jr., who for 20 years was the managing partner of Constangy, Brooks & Smith (and the "Brooks" in the firm name) passed away this Monday at his home in Roswell, Georgia. He was only the second managing partner after our founder, Frank Constangy. A memorial service will be held today at 11 a.m. at the Roswell United Methodist Church Chapel.

"Much of what we do today is to follow ...

I plan to write more about this later in the week, but today the EEOC issued an Enforcement Guidance, Q&A, and Fact Sheet on pregnancy discrimination and accommodation. (This press release has links to all three.) Much of the Guidance reiterated the law as we had always understood it. However, there are some significant expansions of existing law, and it remains to be seen whether the EEOC ...

Oddities, weirdness, and the strange and unusual from the world of employment law.

I thought only elephants had two-year pregnancies. As I've discussed here before, "pregnancy" for purposes of the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act includes a lot of things besides the actual nine months of physical gestation. Arguably, it includes the period that a woman may be receiving in ...

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance, with the Office of General Counsel, has recently issued new guidance governing the collection process for substance abuse testing. Collections are sometimes considered a “weak link” in DOT drug testing programs because collectors are usually third parties, making it difficult for ...

Guest post by Tommy Eden, a partner in Constangy's Opelika, Alabama, and West Point, Georgia, offices.

In all the hoopla over the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision last week, it may have been lost that the Court refused to review a circuit court decision compelling arbitration in a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

All federal courts of appeal to decide the ...

Dan Schwartz of the outstanding Connecticut Employment Law Blog tagged me (among others) last week to participate in a “blog hop,” where we all talk about ourselves – what we do, and why.

I have decided to do this in the form of a micro-novel.

"Here is why I write what I write," she wrote.

What am I working on?

“I always wanted to write a great novel,” Robin said, listlessly munching ...

I was interviewed yesterday by Colin O'Keefe of LXBN-TV on the impact of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, and I did a "quick and dirty" post on the decision the day it was issued. Since that time, the decision has been sharply criticized in the traditional media and on social media.

Here are six reasons why I think the decision is not the end of the world, even if you are strongly in ...

I've posted here and here about the lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Walgreen, which terminated a diabetic drug store employee for eating a bag of potato chips without immediately paying for them. The employee contended that she had to have the chips because her blood sugar was low, and she said she was unable to comply with the store's normal ...