Is stating preference for women or people of color on Twitter for a job listing discrimination? Something I've seen become more common is for folks working at a company to promote a job listing on Twitter, etc. and to say something along the lines of &quot;I'd love to see more women/people of color apply&quot;. This is done in the interest of promoting diversity in the industry, but I've always avoided posting these sort of messages as I'm worried that it may be discrimination. It is illegal for an employer to publish a job advertisement that shows a preference for or discourages someone from applying for a job because of his or her race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. For example, a help-wanted ad that seeks &quot;females&quot; or &quot;recent college graduates&quot; may discourage men and people over 40 from applying and may violate the law. Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices (Job Advertisements section) U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission If an employee of a company posts &quot;I'd love to see more women, minorities, and people of color apply to this posting: &lt;link&gt;&quot;, is that considered showing a preference, or is that limited to the contents of the job advertisement itself? What are the ramifications if this is not legal?
Under U.S. federal law, and under the few state laws of which I am aware, it is not unlawful to expand a pool of applicants based on a protected class such as race, age, sex, etc., but it is unlawful to select an applicant for employment based on a protected class. An advertisement could lawfully encourage applications by persons having certain protected attributes (e.g., born and raised in South America; Native American; Veteran; transgender) in order to diversify the workforce, but it could not lawfully suggest that hiring preference would be given to applicants with those protected attributes. That's a fine line, and it's easy for an employer to cross it, either willfully or inadvertantly. It's best--from both a practical and a legal perspective--to determine the hiring criteria and process before seeking applicants; and to separate that screening process from the advertising process. The advertising process could, for example, target underrepresented groups as long as it did not preclude other persons/groups from learning about or applying for the opportunities.
It is any law protecting me from the people that distrubute a video of me falling the stairs and shared without my permision? No. Your permission is not necessary for distributing or watching that video. The recording was from your workplace, where your entitlement to privacy is quite limited unlike few settings such as (1) your attorney's office in the course of obtaining legal advice for which the disclosure was needed, or (2) your home. Even if such an entitlement existed, your decision to share that recording with the person who was with you generally constitutes a waiver of your right to privacy regarding that incident. The waiver would apply even if California had some legislation akin to the EU's GDPR. Your description nowhere indicates that that person had a statutory or equitable duty of confidentiality. It is also highly doubtful that you would wish to block the distribution of the video if people instead of mocking you expressed something pleasant or encouraging to you. people who I don't even know their names come to me to comment about the video and joke about not falling again. That is not unlawful in and of itself. Since the matter does not involve a protected category such as sex, race, religion, or disability, pursuing a claim of hostile work environment would be quite a stretch. It would also be futile because any relief would not cover outsiders who watch the video and feel like joking about it. The notion of harassment entails a pattern of conduct (meaning that a person engages twice or more in that conduct) that causes a reasonable person to feel annoyed or concerned for his safety. Even if someone engages makes a few jokes that cause you to get annoyed, any petition for restraining orders seems unlikely to succeed. Sooner rather than later, the jokes will get old and people will move on.
According to the EEOC, in general: An employee cannot be forced to participate (or not participate) in a religious activity as a condition of employment. But how religious is this party? Simply calling it a "Christmas party" (or "holiday party") doesn't really make it a "religious activity". Many nonreligious people celebrate Christmas as a general holiday. If the party is nonreligious, then your religion is mostly irrelevant, whether or not it celebrates a winter holiday. The law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business. This means an employer may be required to make reasonable adjustments to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice his or her religion. So, they'd likely have to serve something you could eat if they're serving food, as that would be a reasonable accommodation. (But you'd have to inform them of your needs beforehand; asking them to go out and buy something during the party would probably not be "reasonable".)
The fair housing act does not mention "socially marginalized groups". It says that it shall be unlawful To discriminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith, because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin. The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled on a case, Texas Department of Housing &amp; Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project Inc., that covered disparate impact as a measurement of discrimination. Disparate impact raises the question of whether policies that appear to be neutral but result in a disproportionate impact on protected groups are legal. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, indicated that disparate impact claims can be brought but it also imposed significant limitations. How does this case apply to your question? The underlying situation in the referenced case is one where, from the ruling: The ICP alleged the Department has caused continued segregated housing patterns by its disproportionate allocation of the tax credits, granting too many credits for housing in predominantly black inner-city areas and too few in pre-dominantly white suburban neighborhoods. The basis of the claim, which can now be heard under a disparate impact claim, is that a government organization discriminated against pre-dominantly white neighborhoods. FHA protects against racial discrimination, not against racial discrimination only against certain groups.
In general, employers in the United States are free to fire you for your speech. The First Amendment does not apply to anyone except the government (other than a narrow set of circumstances where private parties act on behalf of the government or take on government roles, like when private universities employ campus police). If the officer was being fired from a job at a private company, this would not be an interesting question -- the answer would clearly be "no, there is no First Amendment claim here." That’s not to say labor laws might not come into play (for instance, federal law prohibits firing an employee for organizing a union, and some states prohibit firing for off-duty political speech); however, labor law protections exist by statute and are not derived from the First Amendment. What makes this interesting is that the government is involved. Unlike private employers, government agencies are bound by the First Amendment. In Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that this does restrict them in their role as employer and that they can't necessarily fire an employee for speech. Pickering imposes a balancing test, where the harm to the employee's First Amendment rights is weighed against the government's interest in efficient operation. Courts have given particular leeway to police departments punishing speech that would undermine public trust and confidence in the department. A police officer expressing racist views, even privately, can seriously hamper the effectiveness of the department if the speech gets linked back to them. For instance, see Pappas v. Giuliani, where the Second Circuit upheld the firing of an NYPD officer for anonymously mailing racist diatribes from home in his off-duty time. Another answer suggests that the main question is a public safety one: whether the officer could be trusted to carry out his duties without bias. But that's not the only legitimate consideration for the government employer. The courts have repeatedly held that public perception of an agency is a legitimate concern, especially when it comes to agencies (like the police) whose job requires maintaining good relations with the community. In Pappas, the officer was assigned as a computer operator who had no contact with the public, but he was still a police officer whose speech had a high potential to undermine NYPD community relations.
Even though student status is not on the list of protected classes, this still might be discrimination. By proxy. Status as student can be a proxy for age, race, and/or color. Maybe even religion if there is a religious school nearby! In fairness to the store manager, when a pack of ten kids comes rolling in on the way home from school things can get pretty hectic. Rather than try to kick out the problem kids many managers will attempt to avoid the problem in the first place. Also, a sign like this might help the manager be less discriminatory. For example, let's say he lets all kids in and only kicks out the ones who are causing problems. If those problem kids are all in one protected class and it's different from the kids who don't get kicked out, the manager looks like he's discriminating based on that protected class. Discrimination by proxy can be hard to prove and I am not sure of the burden of proof in Canada. I have read that "Canadian experience" is used as a proxy in employment discrimination and has been getting some attention lately. That might be a good issue to keep an eye on as it may define proxy discrimination jurisprudence.
The statement "you don't need to put it in writing" is not an instruction, and should not be interpreted as on in lieu of other evidence (e.g. the follow-up question "you don't want to get fired, do you?"). It is, at best, a recognition that your concerns have already been noted (and at worst, a ham-handed threat). In the context of an at-will non-union position, it is legal for a boss to directly demand "take it or leave it, no back-talk allowed". The reduction in salary can't go below the statutory minimum, or otherwise circumvent any laws, but assuming that the new salary is per se legal, they can demand that you accept it and not argue. If this were a government position, there is a potential (but not guaranteed) First Amendment issue.
Most place it isn't illegal, but unless the company has some good reason for asking (such as the ones that Nij outlines) then it might open them up to accusations of ageism. In other words, if they have no good reason for asking they would have difficulty explaining to a court why they wanted that information if it wasn't to facilitate age discrimination.