Race & National Origin Discrimination
In our employment law practice, we have seen race and national-origin discrimination rear its ugly head in various forms. Some of those instances of race discrimination are harder to prove than others, but we know as well as you do: race and national-origin discrimination in the workplace are alive and well in 2017.
Pop culture, the constant flood of media stories on race, and emerging science and scholarship on topics like unconscious bias teach us that discrimination in this day and age still happens despite the inclination by some to suggest we are somehow living in a post-racial society. We don’t buy it. Our clients’ lived experiences show us that we still have important work to do in combatting discrimination on the basis of race and national origin.
Race and national-origin discrimination are also still flatly and plainly illegal under both Minnesota and Federal law. So is retaliating against an employee for reporting that he or she has experienced discrimination in the workplace.
It’s no secret that Minnesota is not a very diverse state. While we, like most Minnesotans (attorney Ben Kwan is a Minnesota native whose mom is white and dad is from China), believe in the overall goodness of the people here, we also have seen where different folks are simply treated differently. At work, the law forbids that kind of treatment—from hiring and promotions to firing and setting forth the terms and privileges of one’s employment.
We’re not afraid to make the uncomfortable accusation that an employer has treated a diverse employee differently, and we welcome the challenge of showing an employer how they have done so in some of the trickier, more nuanced cases.
After all, it’s nearly 2020 and sophisticated discriminators know what to say and do to try and skirt the law. You need an attorney who is a strong communicator to build a compelling case using weighty evidence, which can sometimes be the subtlest little things—differences between how you were treated compared to a co-worker, for example.
Contact us today if you want to discuss a possible case of race or national-origin discrimination or retaliation..