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 ...

When it comes to Halloween in the workplace, just call me Scrooge.

A reader writes,

Hi, Robin. I dread the prospect of employees coming to work in inappropriate Halloween costumes. I've seen costumes that are sexually provocative, or that reflect racial or ethnic stereotypes. Some people even say that employers shouldn't have Halloween parties because some employees have religious ...

No, not that kind of egg.

This kind of egg:

Eggs - human eggs, aka ova - have been in the news this week. First, it was announced that Facebook and Apple will begin offering insurance coverage for female employees to freeze their eggs for later fertilization and implantation, a procedure that can cost as much as $20,000. There are mixed feelings about this - on the one hand, some women ...

(Please note: This week's "Friday" post is up a day early because our platform is getting a system upgrade beginning tomorrow and through the weekend. The blog will be available for viewing, but we will not be able to post anything new until Monday. So if you submit a comment after today and don't see it right away, please don't worry - we will have it up the first of next week. Thank you for your ...

                          If you ever plan to motor west,

Travel my way, take the highway that is best.

Get your kicks on Route 66.

It winds from Chicago to LA,

More than two thousand miles all the way,

Get your kicks on Route 66.*

OK, kiddies -- jump into my '55 T-bird, and let's take off on old Route 66, from Chicago to L.A., more than two thousand miles all the way! If you promise to behave, I'll let you ride with the top down.

If you fire an employee for an indefensible reason, chances are you will get a charge or a lawsuit out of it, even if the indefensible reason was legal. That's HR/Legal 101. (In other words, don't believe that "employment at will" propaganda.)

If you realize your reason wasn't too good and therefore "improve" it a little after the fact, that just makes things worse. If you "improve" it ...

Mother's Day is long past, but you'd never know it -- in employment law, this has been the Week of the Moms. Here's a roundup - tell us what you think!

First up: Title VII's ban on pregnancy discrimination includes discrimination based on lactation or the need to express milk. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit* has held in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity ...

YIKES! Lady Gaga: Wage-and-hour lawyer's nightmare!

Lady Gaga has been sued for unpaid overtime by her former personal assistant, Jennifer O'Neill. (No relation to the beautiful star of Summer of '42.) Ms. O'Neill, who has claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and New York state wage and hour law, says that she was at Ms. Gaga's beck and call 24/7 for about 15 months but was ...

(As the agencies and courts enter their year-end flurry of mischief, I'll be doing quick posts as needed on the latest developments.)

Dum-da-dum-dum!

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has adopted essentially the Strategic Enforcement Plan that I posted about earlier this year. The final version has added "equal pay enforcement" to its list of high priorities. Here is the ...

I am sure you have all heard by now about the $8.7+ million award against The Price Is Right in a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit filed by one of the show's models, Brandi Cochran. A summary of the lawsuit appears after the jump.

As I've previously reported, pregnancy discrimination is one of those hot issues for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. TPIR may really ...