If you believe that you have been a victim of discrimination, it is important to know how to check if employment discrimination happened in your case. Hiring an employment litigation lawyer Washington, D.C. can increase your chances of success.
As with most legal matters, there are many factors that determine whether or not your claim has merit. These factors include the type of claim you have made; how long ago it occurred; how many employees were involved; how many witnesses were present; what kind of evidence was collected; and whether or not you reported the incident within a reasonable amount of time.
Understand Discrimination
The first thing to understand is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to determining whether or not you’ve been discriminated against at work. The laws are different for each type of discrimination, and the nature of the evidence necessary to prove your case will vary depending on what happened to you.
Some types of discrimination can be easier to prove than others. For example, it’s pretty easy to tell if someone was sexually harassed at work — they’ll probably have some kind of evidence, like a text message or email from their harasser or documentation from HR about what happened when they complained about inappropriate behavior.
But other types of discrimination are harder to prove because they’re less obvious and may happen behind closed doors. For example, if an employee is fired because his boss doesn’t like his disability or race, it might be hard for him to prove that he was fired because of those reasons instead of for other reasons that don’t involve unlawful discrimination (like poor performance).
Types of Discrimination
Discrimination has many forms. It can be based on race, gender, religion, or disability. If you believe you have been the victim of discrimination, the first thing to do is to talk with an employment litigation lawyer in Washington, D.C. from Eric Siegel Law. They can determine if there is any evidence to support your claim and help you decide how best to proceed.
Discrimination comes in many forms:
- Sexual harassment
- Racism
- Ageism
- Disability discrimination (in which a worker is discriminated against because of physical or mental disabilities)
Sexual harassment occurs when a coworker or manager makes unwanted sexual advances toward an employee. In some cases, it can also occur between two coworkers who are not managers if one person feels uncomfortable by the other’s actions.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature” that interferes with work performance or creates an intimidating work environment. Sexual harassment may also occur when an employer implicitly condones inappropriate behavior by failing to take corrective action after being informed of it.
Discrimination Claims Categories
Most employment discrimination claims fall under one of two categories: quid pro quo or hostile work environment. Quid pro quo refers to an employee’s terms of employment being altered as a result of their race, gender, religion or other protected characteristic. A hostile work environment refers to any workplace conditions that make an employee feel uncomfortable based on their protected status. Both types of claims require proof that the employer was aware of the problem and failed to take appropriate action.