In a March 24, 2010 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release at http://www.justice.org , the DOJ announced that a federal jury in Sacramento, California has convicted a 28-year-old man of a federal hate crime for assaulting an African-American man in a Chico, California bar.  The conviction occurred after a 3 day trial.  According to the DOJ, the evidence at trial showed that after entering the bar the perpetrator used a racially derogatory term to object to the victim’s presence.  As stated further in the press release, the slur was used several times and, a short while later, without any verbal or physical provocation, the perpetrator approached and punched the victim in the face.

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency which enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, announced in a March 30, 2010 press release at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-30-10a.cfm that a baking company will pay $350,000 to settle a national origin harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by EEOC attorneys in Illinois.  According to the agency press release, EEOC attorneys charged that the company tolerated harassment of employees of Mexican national origin by a manager at its Aurora, Illinois facility, and, when a number of those employees complained about the harassment, the manager retaliated against them by subjecting them to further verbal harassment, long hours, and harsher working conditions.  The EEOC sought relief for a class of seven employees, four of whom intervened in the lawsuit as plaintiffs.  In this regard, the EEOC lawsuit was brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits national origin discrimination and retaliation in employment.  An EEOC attorney quoted in the press release said, in part, that “The derogatory language and other harassment directed at the employees in this case are entirely inappropriate in the workplace.”

Further information about the EEOC and the federal laws it enforces regarding employment discrimination may be found at www.eeoc.gov .

Whether workplace harassment directed at workers of Mexican national origin occurs in Beaumont, Conroe, Houston or elsewhere, victims may contact the EEOC and an attorney to determine if an employment discrimination lawsuit is ultimately appropriate under the particular circumstances and facts of the potential harassment case.

In a press release at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-24-10.cfm , lawyers with the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that Kmart Corporation will pay $120,000 and furnish other relief to settle an age harassment, constructive discharge and retaliation lawsuit filed by the federal agency.  According to the March 24, 2010 press release, EEOC lawyers had charged in the case that the company discriminated against a 70-year-old pharmacist at a Honolulu store when, over the course of four years, a pharmacy manager openly professed on several occasions that the pharmacist was “too old,” and was “greedy” for continuing to work at age 70.  In addition, the EEOC alleged that the manager continued to humiliate the pharmacist in writing by stating, “The pharmacy is no longer your forte” and “You need to retire from pharmacy work now,” in a communication book open to the entire department.  EEOC lawyers further alleged that the victim complained to a district manager, general manager and human resources manager concerning the age based harassment, to no avail, and the company threatened legal action against the victim using a pretext on an unrelated matter to retaliate against her for her discrimination complaint.  Finally, the EEOC said, she had to quit to escape the mistreatment. 

Such alleged mistreatment and the company’s failure to adequately address it violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).  In this regard, the EEOC is a federal agency which enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, including age related harassment and retaliation for complaining about it.  Further information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov .

Amnesty International USA, a human rights organization, offers information to the public in its website at http://www.amnestyusa.org about taser abuse, explaining that since June of 2001 more than 351 individuals in the United States have died after being shocked by police Tasers.  In this regard, the organization states that most of those individuals were not carrying a weapon and Amnesty International is concerned that the devices are being used as tools of routine force - rather than as an alternative to firearms.  According to postings by Amnesty International USA, medical studies so far on the effects of Tasers have either been limited in scope or unduly influenced by the weapons’ primary manufacturer, so no study has adequately addressed the impact of these devices on potentially at-risk individuals, including, for example, people with medical conditions and the mentally ill.  Consequently, Amnesty International recommends that police departments either suspend the use of Tasers and stun guns pending further safety research or limit their use to situations where officers would otherwise be justified in resorting to firearms.  In its website, Amnesty International offers stun gun information to the public, including Taser Reports and Briefings by Amnesty International and Taser Policy Recommendations and Campaigning Tools, as well as United Nations Documents on Use-of-Force Guidelines for Law Enforcement Agencies.

In a press release at http://www.justice.gov , the United States Department of Justice announced that it has reached a settlement, in the form of a consent decree, with the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company that, if approved by the U. S. District Court in Oklahoma City, will resolve its lawsuit filed on behalf of a U. S. Army reservist.  According to the March 2, 2010 press release, the Justice Department’s lawsuit charged that the company violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) by failing to promptly reemploy the army reservist following his military service.  Under the consent decree, the company must pay the army reservist $40,000 in back wages and other damages.  In addition, the company must supplement its policies at its Lawton, Oklahoma plant to ensure that returning service members are promptly reemployed in accordance with USERRA, and must submit to a period of monitoring by the Justice Department to ensure the company’s compliance with USERRA. 

Subject to certain limitations, USERRA requires employers to reemploy a returning service member in the position the employee would have held had his or her employment not been interrupted by military service.  In this regard, the Department of Justice enforces USERRA and offers additional information about USERRA at http://www.servicemembers.gov .

The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced in a press release at http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/osha20100332.htm that it has ordered Tennessee Commerce Bank in Nasville to reinstate a former corporate officer and pay more than $1 million in back wages, interest, attorney’s fees, compensatory damages and other relief.  According to the March 18, 2010 press release, the department found that the bank had fired the individual in violation of the whistleblower protection provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.  As further stated in the press release, the complaint, which was filed with OSHA in 2008, alleged that the employee was placed on administrative leave in March 2008 and fired in May 2008 after raising concerns about internal controls, employee accounts, insider trading and other issues.  OSHA investigated the complaint as part of its responsibilities to enforce the whistleblower provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley and 16 other statutes protecting employees who report violations of various securities laws; trucking, airline, nuclear power, pipeline, environmental, rail and workplace safety and health regulations; and consumer product safety laws.  Under the numerous whistleblower provisions enacted by Congress, employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees who raise various protected concerns or provide protected information to the employer or to the government. 

In this regard, fact sheets and detailed information on employee whistleblower rights are available online at http://www.osha.gov/dep/oia/whistleblower/index.html .  Employees who believe they have been retaliated against for engaging in protected conduct may file a complaint with the secretary of labor for an investigation by OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program.  More information on this subject is available at http://www.osha.gov .

Amnesty International USA, a human rights organization, offers information about law enforcement racial profiling in its website at www.amnestyusa.org .  According to Amnesty International USA, racial profiling occurs when race is used by law enforcement or private security officials, to any degree, as a basis for criminal suspicion in non-suspect specific investigations.  In this regard, discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality or any other particular identity undermines the basic human rights and freedoms to which every person is entitled.  Amnesty International USA further reports that racial profiling makes us less safe, inhibits law enforcement efforts and undermines national unity, providing for the public important information pertaining to racial profiling.  In addition, Amnesty International USA invites victims to share their stories and thoughts in order to join the organization in speaking out about serious human rights violations like racial profiling.  As stated by the organization, 26 states have no law explicitly prohibiting racial profiling and 46 states do not ban racial profiling beased on religion or religious appearance.  To help raise awareness about racial profiling and learn more about this important issue, one can visit the Amnesty International USA website.

In a March 3, 2010 posting at its “Blog of Rights,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that the Human Rights Fund (HRF) has released a report profiling how groups like the ACLU have used international human rights standards and strategies to improve people’s lives in the United States.  According to the posting, the report discusses how the ACLU Human Rights Program worked with the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) to make the U.N. Human Rights Committee aware of the problems of racial profiling and harassment of people who live in the Texas-Mexico border region and the overall militarization of the border.  As stated in the blog, residents of that region were the targets of Operation Linebacker, a federally financed law enforcement program meant to target violent crime and drug trafficking at the border.  The ACLU contends that instead of arresting drug runners, the initiative ended up ethnically profiling brown-skinned people.  As a result of the ACLU and BHNR’s advocacy to the U.N., the ACLU reports that the drumbeat of local coverage put pressure on the mayor and legislators in Austin, the state capital, to rethink support for the policing initiative, which was later de-funded.

More information about the ACLU and this report is available at www.aclu.org .

In a press release at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/rlease/3-18-10b.cfm , the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that a federal district judge in Madison, Wisconsin entered a consent decree resolving an employment discrimination lawsuit against an egg processing company charged with unlawfully firing a production employee because of her epilepsy despite her ability to perform the essential functions of her job.  According to the March 18, 2010 press release, the company will pay $50,000 and provide other remedial relief.  EEOC trial lawyers charged in the lawsuit that the company violated the American’s With Disabilities Act (ADA) when it fired the employee because of epilepsy.

In a press release at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-17-10.cfm , the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that Administaff, Inc., a nationwide company which provides full service human resources to small and medium-size businesses, will pay $115,000 and furnish substantial remedial relief to settle a religion harassment lawsuit filed by EEOC attorneys in Maryland.  According to the March 17, 2010 press release, EEOC attorneys charged that the Kingwood, Texas company and Conn-X, LLC violated federal law by engaging in religious discrimination against employees at Conn-X’s Engelwood, Maryland office.  As stated in the press release, EEOC attorneys claimed in the harassment case that two brothers were called “dirty Jew,” “dumb Jew,” and other anti-Semitic slurs by managers and coworkers because of their religion, Judaism.  The harassment allegedly included the defacing of one brother’s vehicle with a swastika symbol.   In addition, the EEOC said the same brother was forced into a trash bin for the amusement of managers who observed them on a work surveillance camera and called it “throw the Jew in the dumpster.”  The EEOC’s lawsuit against Conn-X, LLC, a Florida-based cable service provider, remains unresolved, the EEOC said. 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits religious harassment.  EEOC attorneys filed the harassment lawsuit after first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.  In this regard, the EEOC is a federal agency which enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, including workplace religious harassment.  Religious discrimination charge filings nationwide with the EEOC have increased substantially over the years.  In Fiscal Year 2009, the EEOC received a record high level of 3,386 religious discrimination charges - nearly double the number of religious discrimination charges since Fiscal Year 1992.

Whether anti-Semitic Judaism religious harassment occurs at workplaces in Conroe, Kingwood, Houston or elsewhere, victims of employment related religious bias may contact the EEOC and an attorney to determine if an employment discrimination lawsuit is ultimately appropriate under the particular circumstances and facts of the potential religious discrimination claim.