Free Republic

Requiring employees in the United States to speak a foreign language is not discriminatory but forcing them to speak English violates federal law under a sweeping order issued by the Obama administration to crack down on “national origin discrimination” in the workplace. The government’s new enforcement guidelines state that bilingual requirements don’t meet discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act but English-only rules do because they’re restrictive language policies. The administration asserts that the new rules, which cover a broad range of scenarios that could get employers in trouble, were created because the American workforce is “increasingly...

In a push to hire minority police officers, the Obama administration is asking the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies to forgive drug use, disregard the criminal records of candidates from “underrepresented communities” and lower standards on written and physical exams. It’s part of the administration’s Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement initiative following a string of officer-involved shootings involving African Americans. Key to the mission is the racial diversification of local law enforcement agencies so that they “better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.” To accomplish this, several barriers must be removed and the details are outlined in a...

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a comprehensive report Wednesday examining law enforcement hiring, recruitment, and retention policies with the aim of increasing diversity in police departments. The report--"Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement"--highlighted barriers to diversity within police departments, such as “the use of criminal background checks” which the researchers found “is likely to disproportionately impact racial minority applicants.” The report also found that U.S. citizenship requirements “may prevent a considerable number of racial and ethnic minorities – many of whom have valuable foreign language skills – from being hired by...

Full title: Dreadlock Ban Isn’t Discrimination; Court Rejects Govt. Claim of “Racial Distinctions in the Natural Texture of Black and Non-Black Hair” A federal appellate court has ruled against the Obama administration’s claims that firing a black woman for wearing dreadlocks constitutes racial discrimination and the government agency representing the employee poses an interesting question: Would a woman wearing a hijab face the same fate? The answer is no. Muslims have more rights in the U.S. workplace than African Americans, it seems. In the aftermath of several rulings protecting Muslim rights to wear religious head covers on the job, a...

On January 8, 2014, Complainant filed a formal complaint in which he alleged that the Agency subjected him to discrimination on the basis of race (African American) and in reprisal for prior EEO activity when, starting in the fall of 2013, a coworker (C1) repeatedly wore a cap to work with an insignia of the Gadsden Flag, which depicts a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t Tread on Me.” Complainant stated that he found the cap to be racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a “slave trader & owner of slaves.” Complainant also...

DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - The push for transgender acceptance is making its way to funeral homes, as a transgender funeral director is taking a Christian-run business to court for refusing to accept his charade as a female. According to arguments heard August 11 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Anthony Stephens, who now goes by the name Aimee Stephens, was denied the "right" to dress as a woman while at work after coming out as transgender in 2013. Stephens reports he provided his employer, RG & GR Funeral Homes in Detroit, with a letter outlining his...

When I was young, a phrase I heard rather frequently was “Don’t make a federal case out of it.” These days, however, you don’t hear that so often, probably because it’s now ridiculously common and absurdly easy for people to “make a federal case” out of nothing more than a gripe – provided it’s a politically correct gripe. As an example, consider the recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) case involving a post office worker who complained of illegal “workplace harassment” because another worker persisted in wearing a cap with the Gadsden Flag and its “Don’t Tread on Me” motto....

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: It might be discrimination or something You know that government can’t restrict your speech. Officially. But they can in all kinds of practical ways, just as they can do lots of other things to you without ever really taking an official action against you. Take the famous “Don’t Tread On Me” cap. Congress will never pass a law that says you can’t wear that cap, just because politicians may not like what the cap stands for. Constitutionally, Congress cannot do so. But if you think that means the government can’t come down on you for wearing...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is considering whether wearing clothing in the workplace with the Gadsden flag printed on it constitutes legally actionable racial harassment. According to Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who runs the “Volokh Conspiracy” blog at The Washington Post, the EEOC ruled two months ago that it will need to collect more evidence in a case filed in Jan. 2014 by an African American federal employee who complained about his coworker wearing a hat with the Gadsden flag printed on it. The complainant said that the Gadsden flag, which was designed during the Revolutionary War in...

"The former employee who filed a complaint with the EEOC was at all times free to dress as desired outside of work," added ADF Legal Counsel Caleb Dalton, "but was required, as all other employees are, to abide by the dress policy while on the job." . . . The funeral home hired the biologically male employee as a funeral director and embalmer at its Garden City location in 2007. Funeral directors at the company regularly interact with the public, including grieving family members and friends. After informing Rost of an intention to begin dressing as a female at work,...

An additional four Ariens employees have been terminated for not following break policy, according to a company spokesperson. In total, 11 employees of the Brillion company have been terminated over break policy and 14 have resigned over the issue. The workers, all Muslims, say the break policy interferes with prayer. In January, CEO Dan Ariens told employees the company would be enforcing the policy of two scheduled breaks lasting 10 minutes. The company said some non-Muslim workers had raised concerns about other employees taking unscheduled breaks to pray. Ariens said the company needed to address the issue to minimize the...

The Obama administration plans to require large employers to peel back the curtain on how much they pay men and women in a push to narrow long-standing earning gaps between the genders. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will roll out details of the plan Friday to begin gathering a summary of pay data from employers with 100 or more workers. The data will be used to identify employers that may be engaging in pay discrimination so that the agency can target its enforcement resources where problems may be likeliest to exist. The proposal would cover more than 63 million U.S....

In a final push to ensure the "workplace rights" of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the Obama administration continues to sign pacts with foreign countries guaranteeing to protect their nationals from discrimination on the job. This month its Ecuador's turn and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation's workplace discrimination laws, is sealing the deal. In past years the Department of Labor (DOL) has executed similar agreements with an assortment of countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and India. In fact, under Obama's first Labor Secretary, former California...

Well, at least they were not told to bake a cake for a gay wedding. In President Obama’s fundamentally transformed America, Christian bakers are forced by the blunt instrument of government mandate to cater a gay wedding regardless of their religious beliefs, but Muslim truckers can now refuse to transport alcohol because their Muslim beliefs and Sharia law prohibits it. As an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission press release cheerfully chirps about its victory over Star Transport, a trucking company based in Morton, Illinois: A federal jury in Peoria, Ill., has awarded $240,000 to two Somalian-American Muslims who were fired...

Feds Go to Bat for Somali Muslim Truck Drivers Who Refused to Deliver Beer Jim Hoft Oct 25th, 2015 1:24 pm 4 Comments The federal government awarded $240,000 to two Somali Muslim truck drivers who refused to deliver beer to customers. The Muslims said it was against their religion. forced sharia (Rick Well) The EEOC took up the case in 2013. Liberty Unyielding reported: Last month, it was a Muslim flight attendant who sued her airline after suspending her for refusing to serve booze. This month it’s two Muslim truck drivers, except in this case, handling booze — which is...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won $240,000 in damages for two Muslim truck drivers after it sued their former employer for religious discrimination for firing the drivers for refusing to make beer deliveries. The EEOC said that Star Transport Inc., a trucking company based in Morton, Ill., violated their religious rights by refusing to accommodate their objections to delivering alcoholic beverages. "EEOC is proud to support the rights of workers to equal treatment in the workplace without having to sacrifice their religious beliefs or practices," EEOC General Counsel David Lopez announced Thursday. "This is fundamental to the American principles of...

The Obama administration has ordered the U.S. Army to pay damages for discriminating against a transgender worker by denying the one-time man access to the women’s bathroom after he “transitioned” to female, thus changing his “gender identity.” Additionally, the administration has determined that the Army also discriminated against the employee by failing to use his new female name (Tamara Lusardi) and instead continuing to use the name the man was originally hired under. The case involves a military veteran who worked as a civilian software specialist at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) in...

... Last March I discussed the trip to the woodshed the agency endured in the Kaplan case when the Sixth Circuit slammed its “expert,” whose purported proof of statistical discrimination was seen to be laughable. The agency has just received similar treatment from the Fourth Circuit in EEOC v. Freeman – exactly the same sort of disparate impact case where a company used background checks to help screen out workers who might not be trustworthy, particularly in jobs involving the handling of money. The EEOC’s view is that employers are not allowed to have a preference for workers who haven’t...

BOSTON, MA -- A federal agency says Walmart discriminated against a lesbian employee who sought health coverage for her ailing wife and has ordered "a just resolution" for violating her civil rights. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ordered the retail giant to work with Jacqueline Cote of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who hopes the determination will help her pay off $100,000 in medical bills. In a Jan. 29 EEOC ruling, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, the agency said Cote "was treated differently and denied benefits because of her sex."

(CNSNews.com) – The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed corporations to reduce their health care costs by rewarding employees for voluntarily participating in workplace “wellness” programs to help them lose weight or stop smoking. But now three of those programs are the target of discrimination lawsuits by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which says they are neither voluntary nor legal. EEOC recently filed its third wellness lawsuit, claiming that Honeywell International, Inc.’s ACA-approved wellness program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Honeywell recently informed employees and their spouses who were enrolled in the company’s health benefits plan that...