For decades, American employees lived in fear of their careers being ruined if their employers or coworkers found out their sexual orientation. In those days, employment discrimination was overt. Most of the legal protections against employment discrimination did not exist. When employers refused to hire women, or when they refused to hire people of color, or when they hired employees from these groups but only in the lowest-paid positions, there were few immediate remedies available to workers and job seekers who received unfair treatment that would today be considered blatantly illegal employment discrimination.
In the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and the legal reforms that followed, enshrining the right to protection from discrimination based on race or sex, sexual orientation also gained recognition as a legally protected characteristic. For a while, it seemed like we were becoming a society where anyone treated unfairly at work because of personal characteristics had recourse to legal remedies such as employment discrimination lawsuits.
Even as some states have removed protections and repealed anti-discrimination laws, discrimination based on sexual orientation remains illegal in Colorado. The Boulder sexual orientation discrimination lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you exercise your right to a workplace free from discrimination based on sexual orientation and other protected characteristics.
Sexual Orientation is a Protected Characteristic Under Colorado Law
Employers have no obligation to treat all their employees equally. They can give pay raises based on the employee’s job performance since the last time the employer adjusted the employee’s pay, and sometimes the reasons for determining amounts of merit pay seem subjective. Most employees are employed on an at-will basis; unless you have an employment contract, you are an at-will employee. At-will employment means that your employer can fire you at any time for any reason except discrimination or retaliation; in theory, your employer can even fire you for no reason at all.
As for the illegal reasons for firing employees, retaliation means firing an employee, or otherwise taking an adverse action, in response to an employee engaging in a protected activity, like filing a workers’ compensation claim, reporting the employer’s misconduct to regulators or law enforcement, or taking a leave of absence for health or family caregiving reasons. Discrimination is when the adverse action, including but not limited to termination of employment, is because of a protected characteristic of the employee, including but not limited to the employee’s sexual orientation.
What are these other adverse actions? They are anything that negatively affects the employee, but which the employer is justified in doing if it is for a work-related reason, not because of a protected activity or a protected characteristic. It can be as simple as a negative performance review or micromanaging the employee’s work. Denial of promotions and raises, or reassignment of the employee’s duties or changing the employee’s schedule when the employee did not request this, are also adverse actions. Declining to hire a job applicant is also an adverse action, even when there are far fewer available positions than applicants. Most adverse actions have a paper trail. Your employer has records of how much your pay has increased or has not increased since you have been working there. They also have records of your performance reviews. One adverse action is harder to capture in documents, though, and that is a hostile work environment. It occurs when coworkers and work supervisors behave in non-collegial ways toward you, such as making derogatory remarks or offensive jokes about a protected characteristic of yours, even if the comments are not specifically about you. Other actions that serve no purpose other than to upset you or make your job more difficult also count as a hostile work environment.
Boulder Sexual Orientation Discrimination Lawyer
Sexual orientation discrimination comes in many different forms. It could take the form of straight coworkers making homophobic remarks about an LGBTQ employee. It would also count as sexual orientation discrimination if, early in your tenure at your job, you consistently received favorable performance reviews and received the promotions for which you applied when eligible, but after you posted pictures on social media of your same-sex partner and referred to your partner as such in your social media posts, your employer’s behavior toward you changed. Your performance reviews became negative, and you did not get any other promotions. Likewise, a gay man would have grounds for a sexual orientation discrimination complaint if other gay men at his workplace bullied him because he never told his straight coworkers that he was gay, or because they considered his behavior or appearance too effeminate.
How and Why to File an Employment Discrimination Complaint
It is possible for the same employee at the same job to experience discrimination based on more than one protected characteristic. If you think your employer is treating you unfairly because of your sexual orientation, you are probably right, and if you think your employer is also treating you unfairly because of your race, you are also probably right. Many plaintiffs in employment discrimination lawsuits cite more than one protected characteristic.
The evidence that you have been a target of discrimination may be clear, but getting justice is not quite as simple as filing a lawsuit in court. First, you must go through the preliminary complaint process with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). By yourself or represented by an employment discrimination lawyer, you must meet with an EEOC counselor and present the evidence of your discrimination. Next, the EEOC will investigate your claims. If the EEOC can verify your claims, it will give you authorization to move forward with your lawsuit. If you prevail in your lawsuit, you can get compensation for the financial losses you suffered because of the discrimination.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, About Sexual Orientation Discrimination
The Boulder employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, can counsel you about sexual orientation discrimination claims. Contact the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Boulder, Colorado, to set up a consultation.
