In June, Michigan passed anti-discrimination legislation that makes hair discrimination illegal.
This new law, officially known as the “CROWN Act” (Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair), amends the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) to expand the definition of race to ban hair discrimination. It prohibits discrimination based on hair texture or type.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a 5-2 decision that Michigan’s main civil rights statute, the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. This means ELCRA’s anti-discrimination protections extend to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) Michiganders.
The Michigan Supreme Court decision stems from a lawsuit, Rouch World LLC
On May 17, 2022, the Mayo Clinic was sued by a former employee who believes her religious freedoms were violated by the Clinic’s workplace vaccine policies. Notably, Mayo Clinic accepted the plaintiff’s request for a religious exemption from its vaccine requirement. But the employee, Sherry Ihde, claims Mayo Clinic’s requirement that employees exempt from the
A Michigan bill to amend Michigan’s principal anti-discrimination statute to explicitly ban race-based hair discrimination, e.g., prohibiting discrimination based on hair texture and style, has stalled in the state legislature.
Specifically, Michigan House Bill 4275, also called the CROWN Act (an acronym standing for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair), was introduced
A recent Michigan Court of Appeals decision shows the value in smartly drafting your employment applications and related hiring documents so they double to protect the business from employment discrimination claims.
Specifically, a case captioned McMillon v. City of Kalamazoo, (MI Court of App. Jan. 21, 2021) involved a plaintiff who applied
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a trio of cases involving the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees from discrimination in the workplace. The Court’s decision will likely eliminate or clarify what protections LGBT employees have under Title VII.
In 2016, we covered one of
How far does an employer have to go to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs? That is an issue raised in a lawsuit filed by the EEOC against Memorial Healthcare on February 13 (EEOC v Memorial Healthcare).
The suit claims the Michigan hospital failed to reasonably accommodate Yvonne Bair’s religious practices when it rescinded
On May 17, 2017, attorneys for a corporation operating a Detroit funeral home that fired a transgender employee filed its appeal brief. The brief argues that the corporation could fire a transgender employee who refused to follow its sex-specific dress code because allowing her to wear women’s clothes at work would violate the religious
Last year we reported on an important LGBT case involving a Michigan corporation that fired a transgender female employee (EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc.). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) argued Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination prohibits bias based on gender identity. The funeral home’s majority shareholder claimed
On January 31, President Trump announced that his U.S. Supreme Court nominee is Neil Gorsuch. Judge Gorsuch sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. If confirmed, he would fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.
Judge Gorsuch authored a dissenting opinion that exemplifies how he will likely affect employment law decisions if he