Disability Discrimination

Many are shocked to learn that the characteristics of “weight” or “height’ are not designated protected characteristics which prohibits employment discrimination against an individual because of their “weight” or “height’ under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination or under Federal Civil Rights Statutes such as Title VII. There is a bill in New Jersey which aims to rectify this egregious wrong for NJ employees. It is logical for one to assume that “weight” or “height”, would be protected characteristics preventing an individual from employment discrimination based on those characteristics, but that is not yet the law. When there are many other protected characteristics under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, such as sex, race, etc., it defies reason and is unconscionable that one’s height and weight are not also protected characteristics.

In order to state a claim of illegal discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 et.

If you are a person with a disability, either temporary or permanent, who could have continued in employment if your employer how agreed to a reasonable accommodation to allow you to carry out the essential functions of your job, but your employer refused and instead terminated you, or harassed you into resigning, you are not alone. Unfortunately, too many employers just cannot be bothered to make any reasonable accommodations to allow workers to keep working. Supervisors and those with the authority to hire and fire,  either set aside their own personal sympathy to fall into line with an employer’s frequently illegal rules of “No Exceptions”,  fearing for their own job security if they lobby to expand what could be certain illegal parameters of a  “No Exceptions” rule; or else they have no cognizant sympathy for a worker with a disability (until of course, they themselves get cancer, have a serious leg impairment, or receive a diagnosed heart condition, etc.) Unscrupulous employers will sometimes begin issuing unjustified negative evaluations of the employee’s work to lay a bogus paper trail in case they subsequently have to defend on a discrimination claim. See Employee Performance Evaluations.

Discrimination based on religion or ethnicity are frequently intertwined and may overlap with bias against other legal classes who are protected from discrimination. In matters of religious discrimination, it frequently encompasses a bias against several protected classes which span multiple categories, including national origin/religious discrimination; race/religion; ethnicity/religion; color/religion. There is an overlap in all of these categories, e.g., race and ethnic origin are frequently intertwined and open to opinion, such as a person whom others categorize as being Hispanic, may themselves identify as being African American, Caucasian or Pan-Asian.

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination is broad enough to prohibit discrimination based on a perceived disability even if you are not in fact disabled. Employment discrimination based your employer’s perception that you are disabled may lead to a wrongful termination. Under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.

Persons with a disability, or who had a temporary disability, have a right to be employed! Persons with disabilities have a civil right to employment as much as any non-disabled person has a right to employment. If you are an employee who became temporarily or permanently disabled and requested a reasonable accommodation so you can perform the essential functions of your job, and your employer began giving you unjustified poor performance evaluations, starting shutting you out of meetings, assigned you a new unreasonable workload you had never been previously assigned, you are not alone. Unfortunately, these are tactics that an unsavvy employer may use to pressure an employee into resigning. See Employment Attorney, I Was Put on a PIP: the Dangers of a PIP.

There are stereotypes which leads employers to believe that persons with disabilities will be not be able to take on and advance in complex tasks and responsibilities and supervise others because of perceived limitations which have no basis in fact, but they are associated with disability in general or with specific chronic health condition stereotypes.

Juneteenth is a day of national recognition and reflection upon this country’s legacy of slavery and systemic racism.

Background History of Juneteenth.

In 1863, as the nation approached its third year of civil war, President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 during the American Civil War. It declared that all enslaved persons in Confederate territory were to be freed.

Chief Executives and high-ranking corporate officers such as Vice Presidents may be lulled into believing they are insulated from age discrimination particularly when they have recently received bonuses and have a long, successful employment history with the company. However, government statistics reveal a huge gap between those who remain employed in these upper level positions before and after they are 54 years of age. See NJ Age Discrimination Attorney, Qualified and Experienced IT Specialists Fired Due to Age.

Don’t sit on your rights. If you think your employer has fired you, or is considering terminating you because of your age, you should contact this law office immediately for a free consultation.

If you are an employee who reported or complained about discrimination to your employer and were subsequently demoted, written up for bogus reasons, or had other retaliatory actions taken against you, you may have a claim for retaliation in some circumstances. The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination protects employees from retaliation for engaging in protected activities such as objecting or reporting workplace discrimination that is based on a class protected under the statute, including the classes of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, affectional or sexual orientation, familial status, disability, see New Jersey Disability Discrimination Lawyer, liability for service in the Armed Forces of the United States, N.J.S.A.