Employment Discrimination

Employment discrimination is a specific area of employment law involving protected classes of employees. Numerous federal and state statutes put individuals into what are known as protected classes based on innate or immutable characteristics such as race, sex, religion, age, and disability. Employment discrimination law protects employees in these classes from discrimination by their employer based on the defined characteristics. However, whether or not a particular person is protected under the laws depends on the answers to many threshold questions.

For example, some statutes apply only if an employer has a minimum number of employees. For the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) to apply, an employer must have at least 15 employees. For the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to apply, an employer must have at least 20 employees.

Although these employee numbers are minimum threshold requirements under federal law, many states decrease or even eliminate the threshold requirements in their own discrimination laws. Many states also add additional protected classes to their laws, such as sexual orientation, which is not currently an explicit protected class in private employment under federal law. Thus, states are capable of broadening discrimination laws within their jurisdictions, making a violation of both state law and federal law in one act of discrimination a real possibility in many states.

Many federal employment discrimination laws not only apply to the entire United States, but have an extraterritorial reach; that is, they apply to US citizens working for certain US-owned or -operated companies abroad. For example, Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA all apply to certain companies operating outside the United States; however, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a related law that governs wage and overtime requirements, generally does not.

There are many other federal discrimination laws with varying applicability, and even more state discrimination laws. All of these laws establish rights for covered employees and place affirmative obligations on covered employers, with the aim of reducing discrimination in the workplace.