#WorkforceWednesday: The Ripple Effect of the Supreme Court’s SFFA Ruling for Diversity in the Workplace - Employment Law This Week®
Business Better Podcast Episode: Is DEI at Risk? Considerations on the US Supreme Court Ruling Against Affirmative Action Programs
In this three-part series, we’ll review the latest federal civil rights guidance, including Title VI, ADA and Section 504, and Title IX. Part 1: Take a Close Look at Your Discrimination and Harassment Policies and...more
On July 30, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was not deliberately indifferent to antisemitism on its campus, and provided some guidance as to how courts may interpret...more
On July 2, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a Fact Sheet, which provides guidance to help school districts prevent and address discrimination, including harassment,...more
In recent months, OCR has reached resolution agreements with a school district and two universities after investigating complaints of discrimination and harassment based on ancestry or ethnicity, including allegations...more
Case resolutions released by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) in the past two weeks may be signaling a change in how OCR expects institutions of higher education to comply with Title VI’s mandate...more
A hallmark of the Biden Administration’s approach to environmental justice has been using preexisting authorities to advance its agenda, none more so than Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That approach now faces several...more
On May 7, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) again issued guidance in the form of a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) to educational institutions discussing how Title VI of the Civil Rights Act...more
Attorneys General from 23 states have filed a petition for rulemaking with the Environmental Protection Agency demanding the agency stop using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when regulating pollution. The petition,...more
Last June, the United States Supreme Court held in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll that affirmative action policies at universities violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause...more
Louisiana remains at the forefront of environmental justice activity. In just four days from January 19 to January 23, 2024, two courts in Louisiana offered interpretations to environmental justice efforts in the State of...more
The Background: It is estimated that over 84 percent of companies in the S&P 1500 use some form of "social" metric when determining their executives' incentive compensation. Many of these social metrics set forth diversity,...more
On November 7, 2023, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) that reminds schools of their Title VI obligations to provide all students with a learning environment...more
The Department of Education recently reminded educational institutions receiving federal funding of their responsibility to foster inclusive campuses in light of the nationwide rise in hate crimes and threats to Jewish,...more
The United States Department of Justice and United States Department of Health and Human Services (collectively “DOJ”) announced on May 4th they have entered into an Interim Resolution Agreement (“IRA”) with the Alabama...more
Since 2019, community leaders, organizations, and lawmakers have influenced a movement to introduce legislation—at all levels of government—that prohibits workplace discrimination based upon hairstyle and hair texture. ...more
With constantly changing regulations, technical definitions and intricate procedural requirements, many schools have spent the past several years worrying about preventing sex-based discrimination as required by Title IX....more
On Aug. 4, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published its proposed rule, Nondiscrimination in Health Care and Activities (Proposed Rule), to revise its regulations pertaining to Section 1557 of the...more
The Supreme Court of the United States recently held in Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 142 S. Ct. 1562 (2022), that damages for emotional distress are not recoverable in actions seeking to enforce the...more
On April 28, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 decision in Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., holding that emotional distress damages are not recoverable in a lawsuit brought under the Rehabilitation Act of...more
The concept of "environmental justice" (or "EJ" among environmental practitioners) is not new. It developed in response to the inordinate number of industrial facilities and contaminated sites located near...more
The concept of “environmental justice” (“EJ”) is not new—the federal government has been working to define and address environmental justice and related human health and environmental effects since the Clinton administration....more
The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury (the “Departments”) recently issued a set of Frequently Asked Questions—FAQs About Affordable Act Implementation, Part 50, Health Insurance Portability and...more
Higher education institutions devote significant resources on compliance infrastructure to hold people accountable for harassment and discrimination, but what if they instead invested in more programs to prevent harassment...more
Federal law prohibits recipients of federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin. As institutions focus on increasingly elaborate Title IX procedures based on the recent...more
The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) has issued new guidance on prohibiting racial discrimination in healthcare, and new enforcement actions show that HHS OCR remains...more