The ethnic diversity of employees in a given workplace can be a source of interpersonal connections. You can bond with your coworkers over the untranslatable expressions in your respective heritage languages, the food ingredients that your friends bring when they visit you from Seattle or Calgary, the cultural clashes between your parents and your spouse’s parents, and how out of place you felt when you first moved to Montana. Conversely, work can be a distinctly unpleasant experience if your coworkers constantly draw attention to the ways in which your ethnic background differs from theirs, even if you go out of your way not to talk about these things and make every effort to dress, speak, and act like your coworkers.
Some degree of social awkwardness is inevitable in most work environments; if work were always fun, they would not call it work. If your coworkers are so persistent in singling you out for your ethnic background that it makes it difficult for you to do your work, then this is employment discrimination. It is also employment discrimination if your employer takes an adverse action against you because of your ethnicity. The Bozeman ethnic discrimination lawyers at HKM Employment Lawyers LLP can help you document instances of ethnic discrimination in your workplace and pursue a discrimination complaint.
Is Ethnicity a Protected Characteristic?
Federal and state employment laws prohibit discrimination based on protected characteristics. The legal discourse on protected characteristics began with the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the list of protected characteristics has grown since then, including but not limited to through court decisions interpreting the definitions of certain protected characteristics. For example, a Supreme Court decision in 2020 determined that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender presentation, that is, on how masculine or feminine a person looks or acts. There is a current legal debate over whether caste is a protected characteristic. Several cities in Western states have enacted laws against caste discrimination, but the prevailing sentiment among most courts and lawmakers in the United States is that to discriminate against someone for belonging to a certain Hindu caste is to discriminate against him or her for being Hindu or having South Asian ancestry; therefore, employees who experience caste discrimination should cite these other protected characteristics in their discrimination complaints.
The federal Civil Rights Act and the Montana Human Rights Act do not specifically list ethnicity as a protected characteristic. They do, however, list trace, color, and national origin. The Department of Labor’s discussion of ethnic discrimination makes it sound like one can also cite ancestry as a protected characteristic on the basis of which one has experienced discrimination. If you have experienced ethnic discrimination at work, the ethnic discrimination lawyers at HKM Employment Lawyers LLP can help you word your employment discrimination complaint to show clearly that the mistreatment you experienced was due to a protected characteristic.
A Series of Unpleasant Interactions Can Add Up to Discrimination
The legal definition of employment discrimination includes any adverse action taken by an employer against an employee based on a protected characteristic. Some adverse actions are obvious, such as firing an employee, demotion, refusal of a promotion or raise, or reduction in the employee’s pay. Other adverse actions are just as worrisome, but they do not feel as final. One such example is changing your work schedule or work location, or even assigning you to different duties, when you did not request this. A negative performance review or excessive scrutiny of your work can also count as an adverse action.
The hardest kind of adverse action to prove, but also the hardest to ignore, is known as a hostile work environment. This is where your supervisors and coworkers intentionally try to distract you from your work by upsetting you and making you insecure. It can include making comments and jokes about your ethnic background while you are present, regardless of whether those statements are directed toward you. It can also contribute to a hostile work environment if your coworkers circulate the derogatory speech through online communications or signs posted in the workplace.
How to Pursue an Employment Discrimination Claim
Employees who face discrimination in the workplace and job candidates who face discrimination during the job search have the right to file a discrimination complaint in court, but before the court will consider your lawsuit, you must follow some preliminary steps. The first step is to file a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or the Montana Human Rights Bureau. It is possible to file complaints with both entities. The deadline for complaining to the EEOC is 45 days after the most recent incident of discrimination. Based on the first interview with you, the counselor assigned to your case will begin a preliminary investigation into your complaint. The EEOC or Human Rights Bureau will interview other employees at your workplace. This will enable them to corroborate your statements and, if applicable, to find out the other side’s perspective on the matter. The investigation might also reveal that other employees at your workplace have experienced discrimination similar to what you have experienced, even though they have not formally complained to the Human Rights Bureau or EEOC.
After the investigation, the Human Rights Bureau or EEOC will notify you of whether it has determined that you have grounds to file a discrimination lawsuit in court. Without this authorization, the court will not accept your lawsuit. Therefore, it is important to present the strongest possible evidence during your initial interview with an EEOC or Human Rights Bureau counselor. The best way to do this is to start working with an employment lawyer as soon as your employer takes an adverse action against you based on your ethnicity or as soon as you notice that the derogatory comments about your ethnic background were not a fluke.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys About Ethnic Discrimination
Our employment lawyers at HKM can give you advice about filing an ethnic discrimination complaint against your employer. Tell us about your case and schedule a consultation at our local office in Bozeman, Montana.
