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Discrimination / Harassment

Court confirms not every invitation is harassment

12/15/2025
Strict harassment rules are an employer’s prerogative, even if they go far beyond what Title VII requires. Fortunately, there’s a new legal decision that offers guidance on how far employers should go and what does not amount to sexual harassment.

Doing the right thing nets HR director big payday

12/15/2025
Federal laws like Title VII protect HR professionals from retaliation for bringing discrimination and harassment to light, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a long history of vigorous enforcement of retaliation protections. A recent EEOC settlement makes that clear.

After the SHRM verdict, 5 lessons for employers

12/15/2025
A Colorado jury awarded $11.5 million to a former Society for Human Resource Management employee on race-discrimination and retaliation claims. Employers do not need to take a side to learn from what happened. The themes in this case surface in workplaces of every size.

Worried about possible pay inequity? Here’s what to do

12/08/2025
Employers who want to fix the problem may choose to look for inequity and then equalize pay. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Here are the crucial steps.

Another state passes CROWN natural hair discrimination law

12/08/2025
The CROWN Act movement has won another state supporter. Pennsylvania just became the 28th state to pass a version of the model legislation, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.

Supervisor authorized religious accommodation? Good luck making changes

12/01/2025
If you haven’t required supervisors to get HR involved in the approval process, you should. A supervisor’s informal accommodation can backfire otherwise, making it very hard to revoke the accommodation. That’s what happened in one recently filed lawsuit.

Insider spills what’s next for EEOC

12/01/2025
Attendees at the annual American Bar Association labor and employment law conference heard from legal experts on a wide variety of topics, including what to expect in 2026 from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The sole remaining Democrat commissioner, Kalpana Kotagal, shared her insider view of what’s been happening behind the scenes.

Salary history bans show measurable progress in closing pay gaps

11/24/2025
Using large-scale labor market and job-posting datasets, researchers found that removing past pay from negotiations not only increases transparency and boosts starting salaries but also delivers outsized gains for women and nonwhite workers whose prior earnings often reflect structural inequities rather than true market value.

As religious litigation increases, take these steps to prove undue hardship

11/17/2025
Here’s what you need to do before claiming that approving religious accommodations would create an undue burden.

Employers aren’t always liable for third-party harassment

11/17/2025
Last month, we told you about a federal appeals case that ruled that an employer may not be liable for third-party sexual harassment that occurs off-premises even if the harasser is a client or customer. Now, another federal court has ruled that an employer isn’t liable for third-party harassment on the premises, either.