Articles Posted in Discrimination

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The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) has reportedly settled a sex discrimination lawsuit that was filed against the organization by five former and current female emergency medical service (EMS) workers in 2006. According to the women, systemic gender discrimination prevented them from being promoted to higher levels within the EMS despite positive work evaluations. As part of the settlement, the City of New York agreed to pay the women a combined total of $1.06 million in back pay and $261,000 in damages. Additional financial adjustments will also be made to the women’s individual pension plans.

Currently, FDNY promotions up to the lieutenant level are determined using a Civil Service Examination. All higher level appointments, however, are apparently discretionary. According to the lawsuit, only 16 percent of the 400 captains and lieutenants employed in the EMS are women despite that 947 of the 2,500 FDNY EMS workers are female. As part of the settlement agreement, the FDNY agreed to change its hiring practices and work to encourage more women to apply for high level positions within the organization. In addition, the women who suffered gender discrimination also agreed to retire from EMS.

Employers in New York, New Jersey, and the rest of the nation are not legally required to treat all of their employees fairly. For example, it is not always unlawful if an employer engages in favoritism, nepotism, or “office politics.” A worker who is unfairly treated may only seek legal action where the discrimination was a result of his or her age, gender, race, pregnancy status, mental or physical disability, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or another legally protected status.

As this situation proves, some women experience difficulty with being promoted at work due to gender discrimination. This type of unlawful discrimination often results in decreased responsibility, influence, and pay regardless of a female worker’s qualifications or experience. Although either sex is capable of engaging in gender discrimination, most cases occur when someone in power expresses a preference for members of his or her own gender. Still, individuals may choose to discriminate against co-workers who are the same gender. Regardless of who is being discriminated against, all sex discrimination is illegal.
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The New York City Police Department (NYPD) issued an anti-bias message alert that warned sergeants and lieutenants about harassment or discrimination against red-haired officers. The story, reported in the New York Post, has met with mostly bemused responses from people who do not feel that redheads are a particularly disadvantaged group in the United States right now. It raises the question of exactly where hair color falls within the law of employment discrimination. To the extent that hair color is seen as an indication of race, ethnicity, or national origin, it could give rise to a claim for unlawful employment discrimination. The U.S. Supreme has never addressed the question directly, but lower courts have considered the role of hair color and other physical attributes.

According to the New York Post, no lawsuits against the city have alleged employment discrimination based on red hair. Officers quoted in the Post‘s story say they have “endured years of ridicule,” but none seemed to think that it rose to the level of actionable discrimination or harassment. From a legal standpoint, however, red hair could be a protected category if an employment practice had a significantly disparate impact on redheads. The Post article also quoted red-haired British model Lily Cole, who suggested that bias against redheads may be a bigger problem in the United Kingdom.
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A college professor is suing the college where she teaches for gender and race discrimination, alleging that the administration prevented her from advancing on the tenure track at the same rate as her colleagues. Wang v. Macalester College, No. 62-CV-12-9750 (Minn. Civ. Ct. – Ramsey Co., Dec. 21, 2012). She further claims that, after denying her requests for promotion, the college retaliated against her for speaking out about it.

Wang Ping, the plaintiff, is a professor of English at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. A native of China, she began working at Macalester in 1999 after getting a doctorate from New York University. She became an assistant professor in the English department in 2001. According to her complaint, she requested promotion to associate professor in 2003, but was denied. She finally made associate professor in 2005. A committee denied her request for promotion to full professor in 2009, allegedly stating that her academic record “did not meet the high standard for promotion to full professor.” After she reported the matter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Wang alleges, the college retaliated against her by “refusing to facilitate her projects.” She received a promotion to full professor in 2012.
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A restaurant has agreed to pay $20,000 to a former employee, along with other relief, to settle a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). EEOC v. Reed Pierce’s, No. 3:10-cv-00541, consent decree (S.D. Miss., Feb. 5, 2013). The lawsuit alleged that the restaurant unlawfully terminated the employee because she was pregnant. The restaurant continues to deny the EEOC’s allegations, but agreed via a consent decree to pay damages, allow injunctive relief, modify its employment policies, and mandate training for its employees.

The complainant worked for Reed Pierce’s, a restaurant in Byram, Mississippi, as a waitress. According to the amended complaint filed by the EEOC, the complainant notified supervisors that she was pregnant in November 2008. She reportedly had an allergic reaction to prenatal vitamins in February 2009, and asked to leave work as a result. The employer had allegedly granted similar requests by non-pregnant employees to leave work because of illness, but it denied her request. She made a similar request to take off from work for a doctor’s appointment in March 2009, but was denied. The employer had allegedly granted requests to leave work for medical appointments for other employees. The complainant received notice of her termination from the employer on March 7, 2009, allegedly because “her pregnancy was interfering with her ability to do her job.” Reed Pierce’s, am. complaint at 3-4 (Oct. 18, 2010). She maintains that she was still able to perform her job duties, but received disparate treatment from her employer because of her pregnancy.
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An employer did not violate New York state or city human rights laws by firing an employee because of her height, according to a Supreme Court judge in Queens County. The court ruled in Peterson v. City of New York, et al, 2012 N.Y. Slip Op. 51472(U) (Sup. Ct., Queens Co., Aug. 7, 2012), that the plaintiff’s height was not a “genetic characteristic” protected by state law, as she presented no evidence of a genetic condition creating a risk of future illness or disability. It further found that the plaintiff failed to state a claim for relief under New York City’s civil rights law, which does not include protections for genetic conditions.

The plaintiff was employed by the New York City Parks Department from June 2010 until February 2011. Her job involved cleaning bathrooms and taking out trash at the Lost Battalion Hall in Queens. Of the five people employed at Lost Battalion Hall, the plaintiff claimed she was the shortest. Her supervisor allegedly told her that she was “too short” to do her job and that “there was something medically wrong with her.” Slip op. at *1. She alleges that the supervisor required her to see a doctor, and that he was verbally abusive towards her. The plaintiff claims that she rejected a different job offer from the supervisor on February 9, 2011, after which he fired her. She filed suit against the city and the supervisor, alleging violations of the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL).
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A nurse at a hospital in Flint, Michigan is suing her employer for alleged racial discrimination and civil rights violations. Battle v. Board of Hospital Managers of Hurley Medical Center, et al, No. 13-99763, complaint and jury demand (Mich. Cir. – Genesee Co., Jan. 21, 2013). She claims that the hospital reassigned an infant under her care to a different nurse after the infant’s father demanded a nurse who was not African American. The lawsuit, which names the hospital and a supervisor as defendants, asserts causes of action for equal protection violations, violations of state anti-discrimination law, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

According to her complaint, the plaintiff, Tonya Battle, began working at Hurley Medical Center in June 1988 as a registered nurse (RN) in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). She alleges that she was caring for an infant in the NICU on October 31, 2012, when the infant’s father asked to speak to her supervisor. The charge nurse then spoke to the father, and Battle allegedly heard him tell the charge nurse that “he did not want any African Americans taking care of his baby.” Complaint at 3. Battle also alleges that the man pulled up his sleeve to display a tattoo that she believed was a swastika. The charge nurse relayed the father’s request to the nurse manager, Mary Osika, who allegedly told the charge nurse to reassign the infant.
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A former Ph.D. candidate at a San Francisco university is suing the school for gender discrimination, alleging that faculty and staff began to mistreat him once he revealed that he had undergone sex-reassignment surgery. The cause of action is a rare one, as only a handful of states, including New Jersey and California, allow claims for employment discrimination based on gender identity. New York state law currently does not allow such a claim, but New York City does. A lawsuit filed in New Jersey in 2011 was the first to test this state’s transgender discrimination law. Federal authorities allowed a claim to proceed in 2012.

Kellen Bennett was a candidate for a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Alliant International University’s California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco. He says that he received good grades and good recommendations from August 2006, when he started the program, until October 2011, when he revealed his transgender status to a faculty member and several students. Bennett underwent sex-reassignment surgery thirteen years ago, and he has lived as a man ever since. He claims that his reviews suddenly all turned bad, and that a postdoctoral internship he had been promised was no longer available to him. At least one supervisor frequently used anti-transgender slurs in his presence. Bennett also alleges that someone altered his academic records in a way that affected his job search. He completed his degree, but was unable to continue in the program as he had planned. Bennett filed suit against the university for gender discrimination and retaliation last year.
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A former manager at a “swanky” New York City hotel has filed a lawsuit accusing hotel management of discriminating against her because of her pregnancy. She alleges that her superiors told her repeatedly that she, possibly because of her age and race, was not a good fit in the hotel’s environment. She nevertheless worked eighty- to one-hundred-hour weeks, even well into her pregnancy. She was working when she went into labor, and ended up giving birth in a guest room at the hotel. After that, she alleges that management began eliminating her job duties, and then fired her on what she claims was a pretext.

Tara Tan claims that she helped build the Standard Hotel’s business in the four years that she worked there. Despite putting in long hours, even while pregnant, she alleges that her superiors told her she did not “fit the culture” of the hotel, a prominent nightlife spot in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Tan took this as a criticism of her Chinese heritage and her age, as compared to the young, mostly white, “model-like…beautiful people” she says the management preferred to have around. She had reportedly gained weight during an earlier difficult pregnancy, and endured harassment regarding her appearance before the pregnancy that immediately preceded her termination.

Tan was working a late shift on April 30, 2011 when she went into labor at around midnight. She claims that her superiors did not offer any assistance, allegedly because they did not want to disturb the hotel’s party scene. She was sent into a guest room on the fifteenth floor and waited for her husband, who came two hours later from their home in New Jersey. Tan also alleges that when she called the front desk to ask for help, the person on the phone asked if she was joking. The child was born soon after her husband arrived, at around 2:30 a.m. Tan’s husband assisted in the delivery, with Tan’s doctor offering guidance over the phone. They called for an ambulance, and hotel staff made them leave through a side exit so they would not disrupt hotel guests.
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A group of pharmacists with nonimmigrant visas sued a number of New York state officials over a law limiting pharmacy licenses to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. The plaintiffs in Dandamundi, et al v. Tisch, et al, 686 F.3d 6 (2nd Cir. 2012) alleged that the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection and Supremacy Clauses by discriminating based on “alienage.” The Second Circuit affirmed the trial court’s ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor, finding that immigration status, other than a lack of documented status, is a “suspect class” and that the law failed strict scrutiny review. While this case did not directly involve allegations of discrimination by an employer, it may have an important benefit for nonimmigrant employees who face discrimination based on their immigration status or national origin.

The plaintiffs have H-1B worker visas or TN temporary worker status, giving them the right to work in the United States for a limited time in a specified job. Each plaintiff had legally worked in the United States for six or more years. The court stated that twenty-two of the thirty-two plaintiffs had applied to obtain green cards. The six-year maximum H-1B period had expired for sixteen of the plaintiffs, so they had obtained Employment Authorization Documents from immigration officials to allow them to remain in the U.S. and continue working during review of their applications.

All of the plaintiffs had New York pharmacy licenses issued through a waiver program in New York Education Law § 6805(1)(6). The law states that pharmacy licenses are only available to citizens and permanent residents, but the waiver extended the availability of licenses to people with certain nonimmigrant visas. The plaintiffs’ pharmacy licenses became void when the waiver expired in 2009.
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A former model on the long-running daytime game show “The Price is Right” received a verdict totalling over $8 million in a suit against the show’s producers. The plaintiff alleged that the producers unlawfully discriminated against her because of her pregnancy by firing her after she took leave to give birth. Federal law prohibits discrimination in employment based on a worker’s gender, and includes pregnancy discrimination as a form of gender bias. Laws in most states, including New Jersey, include similar prohibitions.

Brandi Cochran worked as a model on the show for several years before becoming pregnant. She alleged in her complaint that she witnessed discrimination by the show’s producers against other models who became pregnant, and so decided not to reveal her pregnancy for some time in order, she believed, to protect her job. When Cochran informed one of the producers, the producer told her she knew, citing Cochran’s weight gain. Cochran alleged that another producer, upon learning of the pregnancy, began to avoid interacting with her and suggested that he would have fired her had he known of the pregnancy.

Cochran claimed that the producers made her announce that she was pregnant with twins on the air. After the announcement, she alleged, the producers reduced her work load. She also allegedly received ridicule regarding her weight gain from co-workers. Cochran miscarried one of the twins, and she gave birth to the other three months premature. The child had severe health problems, and Cochran said she had to balance caring for the child and attempting to lose weight so she could return to the show. She claimed that the producers would not commit to a return date, and she eventually learned that she had been fired after she was removed from the show’s website.
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