Race Discrimination Law | Employer Retaliation

If you feel that you have suffered an adverse employment action on the count of your race, you shouldn't be scared about standing up for your legal rights under the protections of race discrimination laws. In other words, your employer is not allowed to retaliate against you.

Your employer is not allowed to fire, demote, harass or otherwise "retaliate" against you for filing a charge of race discrimination, participating in a race discrimination proceeding, or otherwise opposing race discrimination. Race discrimination laws prohibit retaliation against people who stand up against unlawful race discrimination or participate in an employment race discrimination proceeding.

When describing retaliation there are generally three main terms that are discussed. Retaliation happens when an employer, employment agency, or labor organization:

1) takes an adverse action
2) against a covered individual
3) because he or she took part in a protected activity.

An adverse action is defined as an action that is taken in order to try to prevent someone from standing up against a racially discriminatory practice, or from participating in an employment race discrimination proceeding. According to the EEOC, some examples of adverse actions include termination from employment, refusal to hire, and denial of promotion. Adverse actions also include actions that affect your employment, such as threats, unjustified negative evaluations, unjustified negative references, or increased surveillance. Finally, adverse actions can include, for example, any other action such as an assault or unjustified civil or criminal charges that are likely to scare reasonable people from pursuing their rights.

Note, however, that according to the EEOC, adverse actions do not include petty slights and annoyances, like stray negative comments in what is an otherwise positive or neutral evaluation, "snubbing" a colleague, or negative comments that are justified by an employee's poor work performance or history.

Protection against retaliation also applies when an individual opposes racially discriminatory practices by a former employer. For example, it is unlawful for a worker's current employer to retaliate against him for pursuing an EEO charge against a former employer. However, be aware that if you file a complaint with the EEOC or opposed racial discrimination in another way, you are still not excused from continuing to perform your job or follow the company's legitimate workplace rules.

Am I a Covered Individual?

A covered individual is someone that opposed unlawful practices (such as race discrmination), participated in proceedings, or requested accommodations related to employment race discrimination. You are also a covered individual is you have a close association with someone that has engaged in such protected activity. For example, it would be illegal for your employer to terminate you from your employment because your spouse participated in employment race discrimination litigation.

But note that you are NOT a covered individual for purposes of anti-race-discrimination retaliation laws if you simply brought attention to violations of law other than employment race discrimination. For example,"whistleblowers" who raise ethical, financial, or other concerns unrelated to employment race discrimination are not protected.