Monday Blog
It was a contentious few weeks in Indiana following the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Criticism of the law was widespread and immediate. The concern was that RFRA gave business owners the right to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender citizens. CEOs of many of Indiana’s largest employers sent a letter to Governor Mike Pence and other lawmakers saying they were “deeply concerned about the impact it is having on our employees and on the reputation of our state.” The NCAA, which is based in Indianapolis (where the men’s Final Four was held last week), was among the first to criticize the law and threatened to move future events as well as its headquarters out of the state if it wasn’t revised. Governor Mike Pence then signed a language fix that forbids using RFRA as a defense for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Support for LGBT rights has increased dramatically in the last 10 years. As an example, in 2004, according to Gallup, 55 percent of the country was against same-sex marriage while 42 percent were in favor. Now, those numbers are exactly the opposite. For more on this topic, read these Huffington Post, NPR, and ABC News posts.
New York City Underpaying Minority Employees
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said last week New York City has been discriminating for decades against black and Hispanic female employees with respect to compensation and should pay $246 million in back wages to make up for it. In 2013 Local 1180 of the Communications workers of America filed a complaint with the Commission alleging discriminatory practices with respect to pay on behalf of approximately 1,000 employees. For the most part, the city failed to respond to multiple requests for information relevant to the allegations. In December 2014 the city was told that if it did not provide information the EEOC would make a determination against it. That warning was met with silence. For more read these articles from New York Daily News and New York Post.
