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Discriminating against applicants and employees because they serve or have served in the military is illegal. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act protects service members from discrimination in the workplace and requires employers to reinstate employees who are called to or volunteer for active-duty assignments.

Wearables in the workplace are mostly perceived as benign management tools, although some complain they represent a dystopian step toward Big Brother surveillance. Now the EEOC has weighed in with a fact sheet warning that wearables could enable or perpetuate workplace discrimination and suggesting how employers can mitigate liability.

It’s a new HR year and we’re here with some important lessons from the top four employment lawsuits of 2024. Don’t repeat these employer mistakes.

At the very least, avoid using the term in front of applicants or in any written materials describing them, such as interview notes. Rejected applicants could view the term as an age-related code word, thus sparking an age-discrimination lawsuit.

Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for employees to claim discrimination even if their employer’s actions didn’t substantially harm them. Now, the same reasoning from the Muldrow v. St. Louis decision is being applied to the ADA.

The federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act lets employees sue at any time for pay discrimination if their current paycheck reflects past discrimination. Thus, if a female employee discovers she’s being paid less than a man doing the same work, she can sue and receive back pay for at least two years’ worth of discriminatory paychecks.

In documents asking the race of employee, can I ask their race if I’m not sure?

That’s one of the sexist questions the EEOC alleges Waste Industries—a solid waste removal, recycling and landfill service provider—repeatedly asked female job applicants. As a result, the company agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle the agency’s pattern-or-practice sex-discrimination claim.

Why “dead-naming” a transgender employee and assigning undesirable tasks only to minorities could land you in court.

It can be frightening to hear an employee has launched a federal discrimination lawsuit. Headlines emphasizing multimillion-dollar jury verdicts don’t help. Here’s what’s at stake should an employee win a discrimination lawsuit.