As of October 1, “places of public accommodation” in Massachusetts will be prohibited from discriminating based on gender identity. That is, persons accessing a “place of public accommodation” must be permitted to use gender-segregated locations (such as restrooms and locker rooms) consistent with their gender identity. Any place that is open to and accepts or solicits ...

The 2016 Industry Liaison Group National Conference was held last week in Charlotte, North Carolina. Sylvia Smith, an Affirmative Action Specialist from our firm's Atlanta Office, and I had the pleasure and privilege of attending and presenting this year. The headliners, as usual, were Patricia Shiu, Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and ...

Just how much of a duty to conciliate does the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have after the Supreme Court's decision last year in Mach Mining?

Hardly any, it appears.

In Mach Mining, the Supreme Court decided that courts did have the authority to review the agency's conciliation efforts (which caused employers to claim it as an "employer's ...

These will be really quick takes, since there are so many of them, on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination issued this week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (The actual document is 57 pages long, not counting the table of contents.)

I'll try to focus on the less obvious/more interesting points.

Take No. 1: "National ...

Bill McMahon, my law partner and next-door neighbor, has a good analysis of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Green v. Brennan, in which the Court found that the time for filing a constructive discharge claim under Title VII starts to run from the date that the employee tenders his resignation, not the date of the last discriminatory act by the employer.

It's not that bad for ...

Argh! I was hoping not to have to talk about HB 2 again (North Carolina's notorious "bathroom bill"), but there has been so much misinformation about what it did to wrongful discharge claims that I've just gotta.

UPDATE (6:20 p.m. Friday, 4/8/16): I had a good conversation this evening with Greg Lacour of Charlotte Magazine about his article. We agreed that his article did not ...

Big news for employees and employers in North Carolina -- the General Assembly enacted a bill on Wednesday (signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) within hours) that was primarily intended to preempt a certain high-profile municipal "bathroom" ordinance. (More on that in a sec.) But included in the bill is a provision that eliminates the wrongful discharge/public policy cause of ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued last week a proposed Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues that would update guidance issued in 1998. If you're an in-house attorney or a Human Resources professional, I recommend that you read the whole thing. But to keep things digestible on this blog, I'm going to do a series of posts (three in all, I think, but I ...

Law360 reported yesterday morning that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settled a transgender discrimination and harassment lawsuit (not our Detroit-area funeral home case). Although the employer entered into the consent decree voluntarily, we now have a pretty good idea of what the EEOC thinks employers should do in dealing with employees who are ...

Readers have been clamoring for my take on the alcoholism-discrimination lawsuit filed by Steve Sarkisian against the University of Southern California.

Actually, I got one email from a reader, who had a better take on the whole situation than I do.

But who cares! I still think it's a great topic, and a case worth following!

Here's the deal, as I understand it:

Mr ...