Fire Department In Flames With Discrimination and Retaliation Claims
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
Quite often, retaliation claims bite employers in the backside rather than employees’ underlying claims for sexual or race-based harassment and other forms of discrimination. That’s what I was thinking as I read about a complaint filed last month against the Hillsboro government and chiefs at the Hillsboro Fire & Rescue Department. Three current employees allege…
Read More Race Discrimination Has No Place In A Classroom…Or a Law School
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
This past week, Georgetown Law School fired one of its adjunct professors, a lawyer, mediator, and veteran adjunct professor at the school for 20 years for making race-based stereotyping comments. Here’s what happened: the adjunct professor, Sandra Sellers, and a colleague were talking at the end of their virtual class, which was still recording, about…
Read More Reckoning With Race Discrimination In Federal Workplaces
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
On January 20, 2021, in one of his first acts as the 46th President of the United States, President Biden revoked an executive order (EO) barring government contractors, including subcontractors and grantees of federal funds, from certain types of racial sensitivity training in the workplace. Indeed, the link to the former training ban no longer…
Read More Supervisor: “Being Gay Is A Mental Disorder.” Such Comments Do Not Bode Well For An Employer’s Motion for Summary Judgment
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
Since June, federal law protects employees from discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This means that an employer, supervisor, or co-worker may not discriminate or harass an employee because he is gay or is gender non-conforming. If an employee appears to be man, but does not identify as one, that’s his…
Read More Keeping It Real: Cases of Race-Based Harassment Continue
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
By: Amy Epstein Gluck Employers, what kind of culture are you fostering? Is it one of respect and intolerance of unlawful harassment? Or is it one that perpetuates systemic racism? That is one question raised in this recent federal complaint, filed by two former employees and one current employee, all Black, against one employer in…
Read More SCOTUS: Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Transgender Status is Sex Discrimination And Violates Federal Law
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
By: Amy Epstein Gluck An employer who fires or takes an adverse action against an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). So said the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) on June 15, 2020, a little more than eight months after…
Read More Employers, The EEOC Is Watching
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
By: Amy Epstein Gluck The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is making some lists and checking them twice, that’s for sure. Piggybacking on my law partner Rich Cohen’s post about the annual breakdown of the 2019 enforcement and litigation data compiled by the EEOC, the EEOC just promulgated another report—its Annual Performance Report (APR). In the…
Read More Ban the What?
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
By: Amy Epstein Gluck As of January 2020, 35 U.S. states and more than 150 cities and counties have passed “ban the box” laws, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP). What is “ban the box”? Which box? Where? You know, those little boxes on job applications. The ones that require an employee to “check”…
Read More Uber and the EEOC Settle Their Differences
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
By: Amy Epstein Gluck Way back when, i.e., in February 2017 and pre-#Metoo, an Uber employee published an online (i.e., very public) expose of what she considered to be a toxic culture at Uber and management’s failure to do anything about it—especially when alleged sexual harassment involved a rainmaker. I wrote about it here and…
Read More News Flash—Simulating Sex Acts In The Workplace May Lead To Liability
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
By: Amy Epstein Gluck I’ve been grappling recently with various scenarios I consider to be “grey areas” as to the presence of a hostile work environment. A somewhat creepy message. Asking out an intern alone. Showing vacation photos while on the beach without a shirt. Taken together, the conduct might rise to the level of “pervasive,”…
Read More AMY EPSTEIN GLUCK
Amy Epstein Gluck has represented individuals and corporate clients in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and various federal district courts for more than twenty years. Ms. Epstein Gluck’s current practice areas include employment law—advising on and drafting employment agreements; handling employment negotiations, severance agreements, noncompete and nondisclosure agreements, “wrongful terminations” and other EEO matters; representation at the EEOC level; advising employers about discrimination laws and how to remain in compliance, and employment negotiations.
RICHARD COHEN
Richard Cohen has litigated and arbitrated complex corporate, commercial and employment disputes for more than 35 years, and is a trusted advisor to business owners and in-house counsel both in the United States and internationally. His clients have included Fortune 100 companies, domestic and foreign commercial and investment banks, Pacific-rim corporations and real estate development companies, as well as start-up businesses throughout the United States.
