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RECENT NEWS
Black FIrefighter awarded $1.17 Million in court
A jury awarded $1.17 million Friday to a black former Pasadena firefighter who said he was forced to retire after complaining for five years about other firefighters leaving blood, urine and feces in his bedding and scrawling a swastika on his equipment.
The penalty was just the latest case of a black firefighter alleging discrimination against a fire department in Los Angeles and surrounding communities.
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Hope Takes on Hate
Gay man wins $1.9 Million in discrimination case
After 18 years as a cook or chef in various restaurants, Bruce Hope “wanted something more permanent”--a lifetime job with retirement and a pension. So he applied for a position as a cook with the State of California and qualified.
A gay man diagnosed as HIV positive just before he started working for the state, Hope initially did on-call and temporary work.
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Sexual Harassment Plaintiff gets
$11.6 Million
A Manhattan federal jury slammed Madison Square Garden and its chairman with a $11.6 million judgment Tuesday after finding that a female marketing executive had been sexually harassed by Knicks coach Isaiah Thomas and then fired after she complained.
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No Hate Crimes
No Peace
The kidnapping, rape and torture of 20 year-old Megan Williams by two families of white West Virginians shocked the human sensibilities of all who learned of the ghastly crimes - with the exception of the local prosecutor. Despite the self-evident nature of their depraved, multi-day assaults on Ms. Williams' body and spirit - "this is what we do to Niggers" - the prosecutor refuses to charge the fiends with hate crimes, claiming he couldn't get a conviction.
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Title VII and the FEHA prohibit sex discrimination in employment.
 Terms or Conditions of Employment.
Sex discrimination is treating an employee or employees differently because of their gender. Whenever this discrimination affects the "terms or conditions of employment," it is illegal.
"Terms or conditions of employment" means just about anything relating to someone's jon: their position, pay, title, hours, vacations, most everything is a term or condition of employment. Whether or not a person is hired is also considered a term or condition of employment.
Gender Roles
Frequently employers expert women to have certain duties, such as caring for children. In one case, an employer did not hire women with pre-school age children, while at the same time did hire men with preschool-age children. Even though most of the people he hired were women, there was still discrimination. The employer didn't;t think women with young children should be working outside the home. The employer is entitled to this belief. But he couldn't let it affect his employment decisions. When his beliefs did influence his hiring decisions, he broke the law.
 Disparate Impact
Disparate Impact Discrimination is more complicated. "Disparate Impact" is where some type of company policy excluded a certain individual from the job or from promotions. The policy wasn't designed to exclude them; that was just the unfortunate result.
One example arose often in fire departments. These agencies had various strength requirements for job applicants. Women were frequently unable to meet these requirements. In some instances, the requirements were absolutely necessary to ensure the firefighters were qualified. But in many instances, the requirements were simply too high; there were more than was necessary. Qualified women were therefore being excluded unnecessarily. This does not mean that the fire departments were necessarily trying to exclude women. That was just the result of their policy; it had a disparate impact upon women. Because the policy wasn't sufficiently job-related (too much strength was required) there was discrimination.
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