Proving Discrimination
Discrimination happens in almost every aspect of our lives including personal, business and family. However, discrimination in the workplace is illegal and not to be taken lightly. In this day and age an employee must be able to prove unfavorable treatment by the employer and it must be based on an illegal bias. There are steps one can take to prove discrimination based on race, age, national origin, sex, creed, religion, color or disability (Floyd, 2000). In this paper I will be discussing a few of these steps.
The first step that must be taken is to find the employee's position. The employee must show that he/she is a member of a protected class and that he/she has suffered adverse employment action. Everyone is a member of at least one protected class because gender or sex is a category. The protected classes are those that are protected under law and many people form at least one protected category; women, people with disabilities or handicaps, different nationalities, etc (Congressional Quarterly Inc.
English: price discrimination
Map of laws and executive orders banning employmen...
Animated map displaying civil rights protection fo...1993).
What is meant by adverse employment action? An adverse employment action is anything done by the employer that affects the employee's job. This can include position, title, hours, vacation and even whether or not a person is hired. In my job, four of the women (part of the protected class by law) brought a sexual harassment charge against a man in the office. After the charge was made "public" the women in the office were being treated unfairly. There were remarks made about them and the men in the office would no longer talk to the women because of the allegation. Two of the women lost bonuses because of the issue but yet the harasser got his full bonus. I believe this is adverse employment...