On September 18, 2023, the Maine Human Rights Commission considered a case in which an employee alleged that she was denied reasonable accommodation for a pregnancy-related condition and found in the employee’s favor. In Rudolph v. Eastern Maine Healthcare System d/b/a Northern Light Health & Northern Light Regional Health Facilities…
The U.S. District Court of Maine has denied a motion filed by national employment defense firm Littler Mendelson in which Littler attempted to persuade the court to make it more difficult for workers to bring discrimination lawsuits. The case involves allegations that Modula, Inc. discriminated against the Maine Employee Rights…
The news organization Reuters recently reported on an Amazon HR project to develop artificial intelligence to screen job applicants’ resumes. Amazon wanted a computer to use an algorithm to select the top five applicants from a pool of hundreds. What it found, however, is that the algorithm disproportionately screened out…
The Rhode Island ACLU has sued the Newport Grand Casino claiming that the casino paid their client, Paula Borrelli, less because of her gender. Borrelli claims that she learned during a meeting in December 2016 that her male colleague received higher pay than her. She says that she immediately asked…
Starbucks has decided to institute company-wide training on implicit bias. The company’s decision came on the heels of an incident where Starbucks employees called the police to remove some black people from the store for doing something that white people do all the time. These black people were waiting for…
A former cheerleader for the New Orleans Saints, Bailey Davis, is suing the team because of policies it allegedly required her and other cheerleaders to comply with to prevent them from being “preyed upon” by male athletes. For example, according to Davis, the Saints prohibited cheerleaders from being in the…
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and other Republican Senators have reintroduced a bill that would protect people and businesses that discriminate against LGBT people and people who have sex outside of marriage. The text of the reintroduced bill has not yet been released but the earlier version of the bill would…
The federal First Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a jury verdict against the Providence Fire Department (PFD) in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a lesbian who formerly served as a lieutenant in PFD. The plaintiff, Lori Franchina, suffered severe sexual harassment and after she reported the harassment to…
A tech entrepreneur recently took a novel approach to ensure that members of her company’s board of directors cannot engage in sexual harassment and keep their positions. The entrepreneur, Kristina Bergman, is the CEO of Integris Software. Bergman added a clause to stockholders’ voting agreements that requires them to vote…
We previously reported on a bill that the Maine legislature was considering which would help address the gender pay gap. That bill passed the legislature but Governor LePage has vetoed it. As our previous post explained, this new law would help prevent victims of pay discrimination from continuing to suffer…