Is it national origin discrimination for your employer to remove you from a work assignment because your name is the same as that of a long-deceased Anglo-American who is currently out of favor?

Robert Lee, sports announcer for ESPN, is Asian-American and has no known ties to Gen. Robert E. Lee of Virginia. But it was "mutually agreed" that sports announcer Lee would be ...

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 ...

During this season of elections, including the ABA Blawg 100 list (OK, OK, I'm sorry! Today is the last day to vote for Employment & Labor Insider! Please? Thank you!), it seems to be a good time to talk about political discussions in the workplace. It's also on my mind because I was interviewed about that subject this week for an article that will appear in a soon-to-be published edition of ...

That is not a typo. Watch out for the "M" word if you don't want to be accused of harassment based on race, national origin, or color.

The "M" word is "monkey."

Now me, if I were to associate a human being with "monkey," it would be the white guy Joe E. Brown. And who can forget all the monkey-related grief poor, white George W. Bush got? However, the term "monkey" is included on Wikipedia's list of ...