According to the lawsuit MCEA denied a promotion to Handy and subjected her to discriminatory terms and conditions of employment because she filed a discrimin­ation complaint with the EEOC. This is a classic case of an employee minding her own business and being brought into an investigation and then having something negative happen to her. Employers would be wise to look at this case and develope employment practices that don't violate the rights of its' employees.

“Title VII depends for its enforcement upon the cooperation of employees who are willing to oppose or report employment discrimination,” said EEOC Acting Regional Attorney Debra M. Lawrence.

It is very tough to assert your rights in the workplace. Napolitano in this case was not afraid to stand up to management and as a result he has a nice payday plus he has his job as a firefighter back. Employment discrimination is a very broad term and covers many different types of discrimination. There are many remedies available for employees who believe they have been discriminated against. There are also very strict time limits, also called statutes of limitation that must be followed. It is very important to act quickly to protect your rights and available remedies.

Napolitano also told the chief that “the firefighters would not be intimidated into making false statements.”

When this happens to female employees it is known as the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling at a corporation takes place when females cannot get promoted to the higher-level profit-sharing management positions within an organization. In this case the female employees at Outback Steakhouse were not able to advance into upper management where the lucrative jobs are. In this particular case, the EEOC claimed females were denied favorable job assignments, including kitchen management experience. This is important because without experience in those positions employees were unable to make it into top management. If you look at the management profile of most corporations, they are still made up of white males.

“There are still too many glass ceilings left to shatter in workplaces throughout corporate America,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The EEOC will continue to bring class lawsuits like this one against employers who engage in gender discrimination on a systemic scale. Hopefully this major settlement will remind employers about the perils of perpetuating promotion practices that keep women from advancing at work.”

Of course Allstate denied that its hiring moratorium violated the ADEA, however the $4.5 million dollar settlement says different. Companies cannot institute policies that disproportionately affect older workers. There are many reasons why companies would like to get rid of older workers, namely they can pay younger workers less money, and younger workers are less likely to have large medical bills. Also, younger workers are less likely to challenge the policies of a company.

“We at the EEOC are now bringing more and more lawsuits like this one to challenge company-wide policies or practices which discriminate against a large number of workers,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “Make no mistake: As this settlement shows, we will insist on significant compensation and meaningful injunctive relief to resolve these cases.”

Other interesting statistics in the report include of 7,538 cases closed on the merits, 2.5% resulted in findings of unlawful discrimination. Both parties entered into settlements in 19.5 % or 3,249 complaints. Agencies awarded a total of over $50 million in monetary benefits to complainants for unlawful discrimination.

“Federal agencies must step up their efforts to improve complaint processing time, while also focusing on quality results,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “

The department rejected her requests to reduce her number of home visits, took more than a year to install an electric door so she could get through on a scooter, and rejected her request to work from home in bad weather. The department also did not make sure the sloped office parking lot was clear of snow, which meant Sturz fell on numerous occasions.

"A reasonable jury could find that plaintiff's conditions were objectively intolerable as a result of defendant's failure to accommodate her," Crabb wrote. "An employee should not have choose between her job and her health."

The state will pay Sturz, of Ellsworth, $171,000 in back pay and damages under the settlement. Her attorneys will receive $104,000.

The lawsuit alleges that a Taxi’s supervisor directly observed Joanne Cole being assaulted by another co-worker who was by biting her lips and back while she fought him off telling him to stop. The supervisor did nothing after seeing the assault occur and instead turned his attention back to the television program he was watching.

The allegations state that Ms. Cole was subjected to lewd and lascivious gestures by other male employees including gesturing to their penises to simulate masturbation and holding a hotdog to their lower extremities as if it was a penis and gesturing to female employees. Ms. Cole was also repeatedly bitten on the lips and back by another male co-worker. Taxi’s Hamburgers took no action. Officers from the Dublin police department ultimately arrested the former co-worker.

Under the terms of the consent decree the Rams will pay a total of $134,000 to settle the case – including emotional distress damages of $100,000 and a $34,000 contract in which DuBuque will be engaged as a Rehabilitation Specialist for two years. The decree also requires the team to provide training on the ADA to managers and supervisors of the Rams. These types of discrimination cases violate the civil rights act of 1964.

“As this case and many others show, disability does not mean inability,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “All employers should make workplace decisions based on merit and qualifications to do the job, rather than on myths, fears, or stereotypes associated with a person’s disability.”

This type of discrimination is national origin discrimination and it is usually filed against companies for not hiring minorities but the door swings both way. A company cannot discriminate against any group based on race or national origin. If a company does discrimination based on national origin, the employee is protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Discrimination based on national origin is simply illegal, regardless of the background of the victims or the beneficiaries of that misconduct,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru.

“This case represents the unfortunate reality that some employers are willing to discriminate against one racial or cultural group in favor of another,” said Lynette Barnes, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte District Office.

Racial discrimination in hiring violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Scrub, Inc., Civil Action No. 09 Cc 4228) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division; the case was assigned to District Judge Suzanne Conlon. The EEOC is seeking back pay, compensatory and punitive damages for Scrub’s discrim­ination victims. The agency also seeks injunctive relief, including rightful-place hiring of African Americans, training, and instituting policies, practices and programs which provide for equal employment opportunity for black applicants and workers.

“This employer’s hiring practices systematically screened out numerous qualified black victims, and we are suing to seek justice on their behalf,” EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru said.”

John Hendrickson, the EEOC’s regional attorney in Chicago, said, “Assuring the freedom to compete for jobs on a level playing field is one of the fundamental components of the EEOC’s mission. Race discrimination makes free and fair competition impossible, and such discrimination is prohibited by the laws we are charged with enforcing.”

The lawsuit claims Ashley's engaged in racial and national origin discriminated against a class of African-American and Hispanic applicants by refusing to hire them because of their race and national origin. There is also an allegation that Ashley's violated the record keeping provision of Title VII by not keeping proper records of applicant and employees races and national origin.

The EEOC office in Chicago files about 30 cases of discrimination a year in Illinois.

The EEOC claims Ashleys violated the ADA by denying Foster and another employee health insurance benefits because of their disabilities, that the store engaged in retaliation against Foster in violation of the ADA by firing her after she engaged in protected activity and that the store violated the ADA by commingling employee medical records and personnel records.

Wisniewski alleges elevator operator Steve Greco groped and propositioned her while her bosses brushed off her claims. According to the lawsuit, Greco harassed Wisniewski with lewd come-ons that repulsed the widowed mother of two teenage daughters. According to the Daily News Wisnieski said Greco made the following statements to her.

"I just want to take you to dinner, no f------," she says Greco told her while grabbing her around the waist.

"Everybody kisses engineer Steve," the suit quotes Greco as boasting. "This is a man's world, not a place for women to work."

In 1995, the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission issued its report on the employment of women at the highest levels of business. The Commission found that within Fortune 1000 industrial and Fortune 500 companies, 95-97% of senior managers were male. The Commission also found numerous obstacles regarding the advancement of women in business, including inadequate outreach and recruitment practices, lack of mentoring opportunities and the placement of women in positions within corporations where they are less likely to gain the necessary experience and contacts for future advancement.

After depositions were taken in the case it became obvious Morristown did not have a sexual harassment policy and that Spagnola had in fact been harassed and reported the harassment to the appropriate authority. Now eight years after Spagnola filed her first complaint and five years after she resigned, the parties settled for $981,990.

In its lawsuit, the EEOC alleged the dean told the screening committee he wanted "fresh blood and new ideas" and had made comments about getting rid of "old '60s hippies" faculty members. The lawsuit claimed Goddard was more qualified than the winning candidate for the $65,000-a-year job and had been rejected because of his age, with amounted to age discrimination.

The university denied discriminating and said it had chosen a candidate who was more accomplished in his writings, had a superior overall record and had performed superbly since his hiring. The settlement contains no admission of wrongdoing.

The EEOC charged in its suit that Swissotel violated the Americans With Disabilities Act ("ADA") by permitting two supervisors at its downtown Chicago hotel to harass, then fire the employee because of his developmental disability. The employee was repeatedly called “retarded” by his supervisors.

In addition to paying $90,000, Swissotel is required under the consent decree settling the suit to give ADA training to all of its Chicago-based employees, post a notice of the settlement at its Chicago hotel, and report to the EEOC complaints of harassment or disability discrimination and any actions taken as a result of the complaints.

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Disability-based harassment, just like other forms of discriminatory workplace harassment, is against federal law and is tolerated by employers at their peril,” said John Hendrickson, regional attorney in the EEOC’s Chicago District Office.