race discrimination

Supreme Court Unanimously Rules That Two Racial Slurs Are Enough to Establish a Hostile Work Environment

June 24, 2021 | Smith Eibeler LLC

SUPREME COURT UNANIMOUSLY RULES THAT SUPERVISOR’S USAGE OF RACIAL SLURS AGAINST EMPLOYEE ON ONLY TWO OCCASIONS ARE ENOUGH TO ESTABLISH SEVERITY IN A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT CASE

In an unanimous opinion, the New Jersey Supreme Court has held that the use of offensive racist slurs on two occasions could meet the severe and pervasive standard required to establish a claim for hostile work environment under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. The is being viewed by New Jersey employment lawyers as a victory to employee rights and their right to a work environment free of discrimination. In denying summary judgment on behalf of the employer, the race workplace discrimination case will now proceed to trial with the ultimate outcome to be decided by a jury.

In the case, Rios, Jr. v. Meda Pharmaceutical, Inc., the employee claims that on two separate occasions, his direct supervisor called him a “sp*c” and this conduct amounted to a hostile work environment. After he reported both instances to Human Resources (HR), the supervisor placed him on a performance improvement plan and he was eventually fired. At the end of discovery, the employer filed a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the case arguing that only two incidents were not pervasive or severe to constitute an actionable claim for hostile work environment. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the lawsuit.

Manchester HS Basketball Star Exercises First Amendment Rights In Response to BOE’s Attempt to Silence Her

February 11, 2021 | Smith Eibeler LLC

In Manchester, a township in Ocean County, New Jersey where 92% of its approximately 43,000 residents are white, a star high school basketball player’s attempt to speak out against issues of race discrimination and inequity was shut down by the Board of Education. At the most recent Board meeting, star basketball player Destiny Adams, presented a thoughtful speech to the Board to persuade them that the girls basketball team should be permitted to wear Black Lives Matter sweatshirts during the pregame warmup to their first game of the season, which took place Tuesday, January 26. Destiny was supported at the meeting by her mother, an attorney, and her father, the principal of Manchester High School, both of whom also spoke. Without discussing her proposal among the members of the Board or taking an official vote on it, the Board denied her request, stating that warmup gear may only display the school’s name.

In speaking to news media, Destiny said of the Board’s decision, “They told me no, but that can’t really silence me, so we needed to find a way around it”. In fact, Destiny and most of her teammates wore Black Lives Matter sweatshirts prior to their season opener last night against Jackson Liberty High School despite the Board’s ruling. Destiny and another teammate also wore socks that said Black Lives Matter, while another player wrote Black Lives Matter on her sneakers.

According to the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, what players wear during pregame warmups is determined at the school’s discretion. From a legal standpoint, the question is how to balance public school students’ First Amendment right to freedom of expression with a school’s right to ensure the school environment is not disrupted and the rights of one student do not infringe on the rights of another.

New York Follows New Jersey’s Lead in Adopting Laws to Combat Wage Inequality and Workplace Discrimination

September 11, 2019 | Smith Eibeler LLC

On the morning of July 10, 2019, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed new legislation into law providing protections for equal pay for women and increasing protections against race and gender based employment discrimination. The legislation was signed at the ticker-tape parade for the United States Women’s National Soccer Team, who won the World Cup on July 7^thand have made headlines in recent months regarding gender-based pay disparity. The passage of these bills was a symbolic action of solidarity between New York State and the U.S. Women’s National Team, who filed an equal pay lawsuit in Federal Court earlier this year. After signing the legislation into law, Governor Cuomo stated, “We say to the U.S. Soccer League, and we say to FIFA, if you don’t pay women what you pay men, then you have no business in the state of New York.”

These three bills, signed this past summer, are part of a larger effort by the New York State to provide greater protections to employees in the state, aiming to prohibit employment discrimination based on gender and race. These laws will hopefully mark the development of a more employee-friendly workplace environment within the state. As New York is the third largest contributing state to America’s national GDP, such an improvement would be significant. New Jersey has also adopted significant employee-friendly legislation in the past two (2) years, including the New Jersey Equal Pay Act, the S121 Non-Disclosure Bill, Paid Sick Leave and amendments to the New Jersey Wage Payment and New Jersey Wage and Hour law. Following these enactments, New York’s similar enactments will serve to further enhance the protections for employees within both states, and across the region.

The first of two bills Governor Cuomo signed on July 10, Senate Bill 5248, prohibits wage differentials based on protected class status. It requires equal pay for substantially similar work when performed under similar working conditions. Similar to the New Jersey Equal Pay Act, the bill only allows for a differential rate of pay when it is based on a seniority or merit system, a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality, or a bona fide factor consistent with business necessity. Additionally, the bill lowers the burden of proof for a person claiming discrimination and provides a civil penalty for violations of the act. The stated purpose of the law is to prevent irrelevant factors – such as gender – from influencing employers in their salary distribution decisions. The passage of this law came after a wave of equal pay lawsuits have shaken governments across the United States. The bill will go into effect 90 days after its enactment.

Soccer Star Leaves Germany’s National Team Because of Persistent Racial Harassment

July 25, 2018 | Smith Eibeler LLC

Over the weekend, German Soccer Star, Mesut Ozil, retired from the German National Team following what he claimed to be rampant racist remarks and mistreatment based on his Turkish heritage, according to the BBC. The German Football Association, “DFB”, denies accusations of maintaining a hostile and discriminatory work environment for athletes of foreign descent. Ozil’s allegations align with experiences of other World Cup athletes who claim that they’ve been victims of racially hostile treatment based on their national origin.

The FIFA World Cup of soccer took over the international sports stage this summer and served to shed light on issues of discrimination worldwide. Though athletes were required to be citizens of the countries that they played for in the tournament, many players identified as immigrants to these nations, or shared heritage with other countries as well. A common experience of these dual-citizenship or immigrant athletes was to feel as though their fans accepted them as fellow citizens only when their team won; after a loss, the “foreign” athletes were treated as undesirable outsiders. This sentiment would manifest in hate mail, racist or discriminatory statements, and the reception of undue blame for their team’s poor performance.

Along these lines, Mesut Ozil claims he was discriminated against, singled out and scapegoated for Germany’s failure to advance past the group stages in the World Cup this year. Ozil, who is of Turkish descent, claims that he received racially harassing hate mail and was unfairly blamed for Germany’s poor World Cup performance. Earlier this year, Ozil posted a photograph featuring himself alongside the President of Turkey after a friendly, soccer related meeting. Ozil was immediately criticized by DFB officials and fans who questioned his loyalty to democratic values. Ozil was also abandoned by partners and sponsors and denounced by DFB officials such as Reinhard Grindel for the photograph and meeting. Fans referred to him as a “Turkish pig” and German media outlets openly blamed his Turkish heritage and meeting with Erdogan for Germany’s losses in the World Cup.