All races are protected by federal and state racial discrimination laws. Race discrimination is treating people differently based on their race. This can include things like paying different races different rates, it can include giving promotions only to certain races, and it can include making hiring and firing decisions based on race. It may also include harassment based on race and that includes things like name-calling and using inappropriate racial terms and other things of that nature.
It may be imperative to discuss the details of your case with a Chattanooga race discrimination lawyer who can help you decipher inappropriate behaviors. Contact a distinguished and compassionate workplace discrimination attorney could help you file a claim.
What is Considered Discrimination Under Chattanooga Law
There is a wide range of things that can be considered discrimination and harassment based on an employee’s race in Chattanooga. Examples include treating employees differently depending on their race. Racial discrimination is also evident when an employer uses derogatory terms or racial epithets towards employees of a particular race.
As lawyers for harassment and discrimination understand, these cases can involve offensive and derogatory terms being used. More strong evidence of racial discrimination is where employees claim that employers generalize people belonging to a particular race as not being hard working, being lazy, etc.
Examples of Workplace Race-Related Harassment
Workplace harassment qualifying as race-based discrimination can be any kind of harassment, any kind of mistreatment, and any kind of offensive gestures or words that are that are based on an employee’s race. This can range from general mistreatment to the use of very offensive racial epithets.
Discrimination based on someone’s association with their spouse or partner would qualify as association discrimination, which is also illegal. A person cannot be discriminated against because of their association with an employee of another race.
Can Race-Based Discrimination Occur Between Same-Race Employees?
Legally, it is possible that there could be discrimination or harassment between people of the same skin color. If any time that an employee is treated differently based on her race, it is discrimination, no matter the race of the person they are accusing of the mistreatment.
It would be a matter of proving that the mistreatment is somehow based on the person’s race. Most racial discrimination cases stem from hostility between members of two different races. That would be absent in a same race discrimination case but it certainly could happen and the racial protections would still apply. Therefore, it may be critical for victims to contact harassment and discrimination lawyers in Chattanooga right away.
Impact of Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Right Act is the most important law in addressing race discrimination in the workplace. It forbids race-based discrimination and provides a remedy for employees who have been discriminated against based on the race. Employees who have been discriminated against based on their race, whether in terms of hiring, firing or mistreatment in the workplace, may have a case for race discrimination and monetary damages.
Understanding The Role of a Disparate Impact Case
This form of race-based discrimination would be considered a disparate impact case. This is slightly different than a typical disparate treatment case, which are the typical cases where employees of a different race are actually treated differently than members of other races.
Disparate impact cases focus more on a type of downstream effect that might be unintended but nonetheless occurs because of the nature of the employer’s policy. For example if an employer makes a rule about hair length, that could potentially have a larger effect against one race than another. That would be illegal if the employer could not show that there is a legitimate business basis for having that requirement.
