This week a jury in Suffolk County Superior Court found that the City of Boston discriminated against city employee Chantal Charles because of her race. Charles, a black woman of Haitian descent, worked as a senior administrative assistant in the City’s Treasury Department. She alleged that the City and the…
Earlier this month, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Virginia, held that a race discrimination class action against Nucor Corporation could proceed. This decision marked the second time that this appellate court has reversed the trial judge’s decision not to let the class action proceed. The case centers…
At the last meeting of the Maine Human Rights Commission (MHRC), the Commissioners found reasonable grounds to believe that Hartford Installations, a company based in Damariscotta and South Portland, discriminated against a former employee because of his race and retaliated against him when he complained of the discrimination. The former…
A Connecticut appeals court recently ruled that an ambulance company could legally discriminate against a volunteer on the basis of her race. The volunteer who brought the case, an African American woman named Sarah Puryear, alleged that her ambulance company discriminated against her because of her race. Ms. Puryear alleged,…
A group of former McDonald’s employees have sued the McDonald’s corporation and the franchises where they worked for race and sex discrimination. The employees who filed the lawsuit worked for McDonald’s restaurants in Boston and Clarksville, Virginia. Their allegations of discrimination include claims that the restaurants believed that their employees…
This week, protesters in the Chicago-area community of Forest Park reportedly decried racial discrimination against African Americans in hiring at Ferrara Candy. Ferrara Candy makes candies such as Red Hots and Lemonheads. The company and two staffing agencies it uses have been accused of discriminating against African American laborers in…
Tatsha Robertson, a former Senior Editor for People magazine, has sued People and its parent company, Time, Inc., for race discrimination. Robertson, who is African American, alleges that People Magazine laid her off because of her race. According to Robertson’s lawsuit, “behind the cover and pages of People magazine, is…
Fifty years ago, in July 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Through this landmark piece of legislation, the federal government sought, among other things, to dismantle abhorrent “Jim Crow” laws in the South which rendered African Americans second class citizens. A strong minority…
The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the Boston Police Department may have violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act because it used a drug test that analyzed hair samples which had a disparate impact on African American police officers. After looking at the statistical differences…
Bed Bath & Beyond has agreed to a settlement with New York’s Attorney General regarding the company’s policy of refusing to hire all applicants with past criminal convictions. In New York, with the exception of law enforcement jobs, it is illegal for employers to categorically refuse to hire all applicants…