Just before the end of October, the Biden administration announced an unprecedented national gender strategy to advance the full participation of women and girls, both, here in the United States and abroad. “President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that advancing gender equity and equality is fundamental to every individual’s economic security, safety, health and ability to exercise their most basic Read More

The question of how employers handle applications for religious exemptions to vaccine requirements has become more prevalent throughout the country. In new guidance issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), federal anti-discrimination law permits employers to scrutinize exemption requests rooted in political or personal objections. The guidance states this while reiterating that businesses Read More

In April Hughes et al. v. Northwestern University et al., the defendant, Northwestern University (“Northwestern”) urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Seventh Circuit’s ruling that ended the lawsuit claiming the school permitted its retirement plans to pay exorbitant fees. Northwestern claims that the Court would encourage "judicial micromanagement" of retirement plan fees and have a detrimental impact on such Read More

The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) recently updated its guidance regarding COVID-19-related compliance for various federal employment nondiscrimination laws. The EEOC had previously issued guidance on coronavirus compliance issues under certain laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The revised guidance reveals that Read More

An Illinois meat processing plant, the Chicago Meat Authority Inc. (“CMA”), and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently agreed to settle a three-year-old lawsuit filed in an Illinois federal court. The agency claimed that CMA had a recurring practice where it bypassed Black job applicants for almost a decade and subjected Black employees to racial slurs and harassment. In U.S. Equal Read More

The Biden administration issued a notice of proposed rulemaking for ending certain preferential contracts with nonprofits that employ blind or seriously disabled workers. The nonprofits involved in these contracts have traditionally benefitted from a law that allows them to pay blind or seriously disabled employees less than the standard minimum wage. In addition, President Biden called for a phaseout of the program Read More

The Biden administration recently announced that the federal government would stop raiding workplaces to arrest undocumented workers. This ends the former administration’s policy, which the Biden Administration claimed was used by "exploitative employers to suppress and retaliate against workers' assertion of labor laws." This ends what U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Read More

A Maine attorney allegedly fired for taking parental leave must take his case to arbitration. A First Circuit judge decided that the language of an offer letter to the attorney required arbitration of his discrimination and wrongful termination claims. Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios LLP (“Preti”) hired Bryan O'Brien as an associate in 2017 to work at its Portland office. O’Brien alleges that the firm Read More

In a federal lawsuit filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, plaintiffs requested conditional certification of all student-athletes who had played for NCAA Division I schools since April 2017, along with sub-groups of students who had played at 15 other colleges and universities. More than 200,000 college student-athletes could opt-in if this request for the first stage of certification and notice Read More

The Biden administration recently announced initiatives for an expedited 90-day schedule to counteract supply shortages caused by gridlock stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. These actions represent efforts to enlist business enterprises to increase staffing and work around the clock to get goods off the ships, into warehouse distribution centers, and onto trucks and trains so that they reach consumers more Read More