In my ongoing effort to chronicle in one place (this blog) the major employment laws affecting employers in Virginia and the District of Columbia, here is an overview of the Reconstruction Era Civil Rights Acts as applied to modern-day employment discrimination lawsuits.
As a courtesy to employment lawyers and employers, The Employment Law Chronicle provides links to the text of key Federal, Virginia, and District of Columbia labor and employment laws published on government sites.
The DC Human Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin. sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family responsibilities, genetic information, disability, matriculation, or political affiliation.
As a courtesy to employers and employment lawyers, The Employment Law Chronicle provides links to the text of key Federal, Virginia, and District of Columbia labor and employment laws published on government sites.
Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion or sex.
As a courtesy to employers and employment lawyers, The Employment Law Chronicle provides links to the text of key Federal, Virginia, and District of Columbia labor and employment laws published on public sites.
The Virginia Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, or disability.
Employers in Virginia, the District of Columbia and nationwide need to ensure that testing and selection procedures used to screen job applicants or existing employees for advancement or other opportunities do not have a discriminatory impact on the basis of race, sex, age, disability or other protected category. In recent years, testing and selection criteria have been a prime target of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) enforcement efforts. For example, in November 2006, the Eighth Circuit affirmed a $3 million judgment in EEOC v. Dial Corp resulting from a strength test that appeared to have excluded women from entry-level jobs. In 2007, Ford Motor Company, two of its affiliates, and the UAW entered into a $1.6 million settlement stemming from cognitive apprenticeship tests that appeared to have excluded African Americans. That settlement came on the heels of an $8.5 million settlement in a related case.
In the wake of these multi-million dollar judgments and settlements, the EEOC issued a fact sheet to assist employers in understanding how to avoid employment discrimination claims based on tests and other selection criteria.
