Must An Employer Accommodate An Employee’s Refusal To Use A Co-Worker’s Preferred Pronouns?
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
What is an employer to do when faced with conflicting legal obligations to different employees? One employee has the right to have their preferred pronouns utilized in the workplace and another is entitled to a accommodation based on her religious beliefs. That’s the dilemma confronted by the employer in Michigan, Bio Blood Components. The employer…
Read More Employers, Don’t Throw Away Your Shot To Prevent And Remedy Antisemitism
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
As most have heard by now, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Brooklyn Nets suspended star player Kyrie Irving for espousing, and then not disavowing, antisemitism. Irving promoted a well-known antisemitic documentary on Twitter. Unlike when I tweet about some case or new workplace law, when Irving tweets, more than 4.6 million people may…
Read More Antisemitism In the Workplace
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
Antisemitic sentiment continues to rise. Maybe you saw the swastikas hand-drawn on the columns at Union Station in Washington, DC this morning? No? Here’s a local news report about the drawings, which were found the day after National Holocaust Remembrance Day. Last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC), the federal agency that enforces federal…
Read More Administrators, Not Ministers—Bostock Bars Discriminatory Termination of Drama Teacher at Catholic High School
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
Last week, a federal judge ruled in favor of a gay former drama teacher who lost his job at Charlotte Catholic High School after he announced on social that he and his male partner were getting married. A federal court in North Carolina deemed the organization’s actions discriminatory on the basis of sex. Even though…
Read More 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 What Does the EEOC Do Anyway? Oh, And It Issued Its New Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
Yesterday, January 15, 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) approved revisions to EEOC’s Compliance Manual Section on Religious Discrimination (“Manual”). I’ve fielded some questions lately about the EEOC, so I wanted to clarify for employers what the EEOC does and does not do: The EEOC is not a court. The EEOC does not make…
Read More Ministerial Exemption Does Not Bar Hostile Work Environment Claim For Gay Church Employee
By Amy Epstein Gluck |
Can an employee sue his church employer after his supervisor, a priest, created a hostile work environment claim because of the employee’s sexual orientation once the priest learned of the employee’s plans to marry his long-term partner? Yes, yes it can, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Demkovich…
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 Hope This Is A One-Off – Pentecostal Employees Harassed By Supervisor: EEOC
By Richard Cohen |
We have not seen this type of workplace discrimination case often – outright harassment based upon religion. What we see are cases of discrimination based upon the wearing of religious garb (think hijab or yarmulka), or discrimination because an employee requires an accommodation for attending religious services or observance of the Sabbath. We have published many…
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.
