As our readers know, discrimination against transgender individuals is often treated as sex discrimination under Title VII, as a form of unlawful "sex stereotyping."

But is it also a "disability" within the meaning of the Americans with Disabilities Act when an individual identifies with a gender other than his or her biological one?

Transgender individuals don't usually invoke the ...

Feeling whipsawed?

Last summer, I reported on the Hively v. Ivy Tech decision, in which a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not "sex discrimination" or unlawful sex stereotyping that violates Title VII. That decision has since been vacated, and the case will be heard again on November 30 by ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed today two lawsuits contending that employers' alleged discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation violates the Title VII ban on sex discrimination. One suit was filed on behalf of a gay call center employee in Pennsylvania, and the other was filed on behalf of a lesbian forklift operator in Maryland.

Here is the ...

This case may have some problems, but it's a good illustration of why employers need to be careful, post-Young v. UPS. Thanks very much to Bill Goren for sending it my way.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit last week in a federal court in Pennsylvania against Landis Communities (retirement communities), claiming that Landis unlawfully refused to accommodate the ...

Late last week, the Utah Supreme Court decided that an employer who terminates an employee for acting in self-defense can be liable for wrongful discharge, if

The employee "reasonably believes that force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of serious bodily harm," and

The employee has no opportunity to withdraw.

The case, Ray v. Wal-Mart Stores, involved two ...

When I do harassment training, I ask my audiences whether they think employers should ban the "N" word even when it's used by African-Americans among themselves. In my experience, the African-Americans in the audience have been the most vocal advocates for treating everyone equally in this regard. In other words, they argue, the word should be banned for everybody -- not banned for some ...

Whoa.

A federal judge in Pennsylvania held this week that U.S. Steel had the right under the Americans with Disabilities Act to conduct random alcohol tests on probationary employees at a coke plant, granting summary judgment to the company in a class action that had been filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The court found, in a "case of first impression,"* that the ...

Wow! This story has it all.

Bullying!

Chick-fil-A!

Social media!

Was this guy's YouTube post "protected concerted activity"? You decide.

Adam Smith (no relation to that "invisible hand" guy), chief financial officer of biotech company Vante, went to a drive-through at a Tucson Chick-fil-A on Wednesday morning, ordered a free water, confronted the drive-through girl* about ...

Here are some steaming hot employment law news items for this sweltering mid-July:

EEOC does nothing to protect actor wrongfully terminated because of arrest record. (NOTE: I'm being tongue-in-cheek here.) You have probably heard by now about the arrest of actor Fred Willard for alleged "lewd conduct" in an adult movie theater. Willard denies behaving lewdly apart from being in ...