Discrimination
Employment Discrimination Research Project
Employment Discrimination in the United States
What I already knew/What I wanted to know
The Federal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws were established, during the civil rights movement, to protect employees from discrimination. According to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employment discrimination because of race, color, religion, gender, and national origin is illegal. The Equal Pay Act protects workers against sex bias and salary discrimination. In addition, there are laws which protect people with disabilities, and employees over 40 years old from discrimination; such as, The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Discrimination against people on the basis of their genetic information is also illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 allows employees who are intentionally discriminated against to receive monetary damages (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2009).
In my opinion, the government has made significant efforts since the 1960's to address problems of employment discrimination in the workplace. More women, minorities, and people with disabilities are attaining college and graduate level educations, and jobs previously reserved for Caucasian men. Prior to the 1960's, African-Americans and other minorities experienced segregation (The Library of Congress, 2010). Discrimination against people of different religious backgrounds particularly Jewish, Sikh, and Muslim Americans was also common. Even after the Civil Rights Act, people with Jewish heritage continued to experience discrimination in employment (Fieler, 2011). Prior to the 1960's, women were limited in their education and employment opportunities. Since the Civil Rights Act, employment discrimination against women, minorities, elderly Americans, and people with disabilities has improved. In 2008, America elected the first
African-American president, Barack Obama. Currently, there are a total of 92 women, 43 African-Americans, and 44 Jewish representatives in the 112th United States Congress. In addition, there are 27 Hispanics, one Native American, and seven Asian representatives. This is in comparison to 413 Caucasian representatives, who reported having a Christian religious affiliation (The Nation, 2011). Like most people, I am aware of the progress made in creating a society that is free from discrimination. However, I believe problems of employment discrimination still exist, as evidenced by the number of recent discrimination cases like the Wall-mart sex bias lawsuit. In my research, I hope to determine if employment discrimination is still prevalent in the United States. To what extent are women, disabled, elderly and minority Americans experiencing discrimination today? My hypothesis is that employment discrimination still occurs in most areas of the United States, especially age discrimination, discrimination against minorities, and women. I believe there is less discrimination against disabled Americans. However, I believe people with mental illness experience stigma and have fewer employment opportunities than people without mental health disorders. In my research, I plan to find current legal cases and reports of discrimination in the United States. I will especially be looking for current cases of employment discrimination against women, minorities, disabled Americas, and workers over age 40. In addition, I will also search for cases of employment discrimination against non-Christian Americans, particularly Sikh, Muslim, and Jewish employees.
The Story of My Search
In conducting my research, I used sources from the internet, public library, and other free online databases. Initially, I conducted a Google search using the terms employment discrimination. In addition, I conducted an online search of United States newspapers including USA Today, and the Washington Post at *****. Other websites where I found information included the Library of Congress, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There are also free databases like ERIC and Ebsco available to anyone with a public library card. Because I wanted to know about discrimination against minorities, I used key words, like anti-Semitism, discrimination and minorities, and discrimination and African-Americans, to search databases and the internet. I also researched segregation, and discrimination and women. In my online research, I used dates like pre-1960 and post 1960, as I wanted to understand how employment discrimination changed after the civil rights movement. In addition, I searched online databases using key words such as, employment discrimination 2011, to locate current legal cases and reports of employment discrimination.
The Results of My Search
The results of my internet and data base search revealed multiple incidences of discrimination in the past 10 years. A current case which highlights sex bias at a leading American company occurred at Wal-Mart between 2003 and 2011. A female employee filed a complaint against Wal-Mart in 2003 for sex bias and discrimination which is currently being heard by the Supreme Court. According...
Transgender Employment Discrimination There is a growing body of evidence that transgender individuals frequently experience some type of discrimination during the employment process in the United States today. Although there are only a few high-profile cases, there are a significant number of employment claims being asserted. In terms of numbers, the high was reached in 1994 when almost 92,000 discrimination charges were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Since that
Figure 1. Demographic composition of the United States (2003 estimate). Source: Based on tabular data in World Factbook, 2007 (no separate listing is maintained for Hispanics). From a strictly percentage perspective, it would seem that Asian-Americans do not represent much of a threat at all to mainstream American society, but these mere numbers do not tell the whole story of course. For one thing, Asian-Americans are one of the most diverse and
Occupational Health and Safety As a result of the fact that there is by no means a real sense of equality when it comes to the two genders and discrimination in the American workplace today, it's important to acknowledge that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of fighting for equality. In continuing that fight, it's important to be aware that sexist treatment and gender discrimination are
Workplace Diversity "The benefits of diversity cannot be achieved with isolated interventions. To the contrary, a complete organizational culture change is required in order to promote appreciation of individual differences… diversity is a multifaceted reality…" (Martin-Alcazar, et al., 2012) The need for diversity in the workplace has been well established in the literature, but the need for managers and executives to build a culture based on diversity is still on the drawing
Discrimination against the elderly, against pregnant women, against women with children, against people of color are all prohibited under the law. The EEOC or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created to administer Title VII of the Civil Rights act and specifically to "progress race, national origin, religious, and sex discrimination claims pursuant to the statue" (Gregory, 2003). Is the EEC doing its job? During the first year alone after
They dropped back slightly to 1.5 million in 2002" (Mason-Dreffen 2003). Those increases occurred despite the fact that age discrimination can be difficult to prove, although the Supreme Court had eased the plaintiff's burden of proof (Ormsbee 2002). Song 2001 University of California at Davis professor of computer science, Dr. Norman Matloff, noted that in the IT world, "old" can begin at age 35. In addition, "The market has become
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