Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

“ There is hereby created a Commission to be known as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which shall be composed of five members, not more than three of whom shall be members of the same political party, who shall be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. ”

“ The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, after consultation with all affected departments and agencies, shall issue such rules, regulations, orders, and instructions and request such information from the affected departments and agencies as it deems necessary and appropriate to carry out this Order. ”

“ Once these indicia are consulted and given effect in this case, I believe there can be no question that Congress intended Title VII to protect United States citizens from discrimination by United States employers abroad.
"It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." ”

“ In exercising its powers under this subchapter, the Commission shall carry out educational and outreach activities (including dissemination of information in languages other than English) targeted to— (A) individuals who historically have been victims of employment discrimination and have not been equitably served by the Commission; and (B) individuals on whose behalf the Commission has authority to enforce any other law prohibiting employment discrimination, concerning rights and obligations under this subchapter or such law, as the case may be. ”

“ The EEOC assures us that in its view the term "employer" means only "American employer," but there is no such distinction in this statute and no indication that the EEOC in the normal course of its administration had produced a reasoned basis for such a distinction. Without clearer evidence of congressional intent to do so than is contained in the alien-exemption clause, we are unwilling to ascribe to that body a policy which would raise difficult issues of international law by imposing this country's employment-discrimination regime upon foreign corporations operating in foreign commerce. ”

“ Under respondents' construction of the statute, no one-neither citizen nor alien-is protected from discrimination abroad. Thus, in order to credit respondents' interpretation of the alien-exemption provision, we must attribute to Congress a decision to enact a completely superfluous exemption solely as a means of signaling its intent that aliens be protected from employment discrimination in this Nation. ”

“ An employer may remind all employees that it is against the federal EEO laws to harass or otherwise discriminate against coworkers based on race, national origin, color, sex, religion, age (40 or over) , disability, or genetic information. It may be particularly helpful for employers to advise supervisors and managers of their roles in watching for, stopping, and reporting any harassment or other discrimination. An employer may also make clear that it will immediately review any allegations of harassment or discrimination and take appropriate action. ”

“ The Civil Service Commission shall—
" (1) be responsible for the annual review and approval of a national and regional equal employment opportunity plan which each department and agency and each appropriate unit referred to in subsection (a) of this section shall submit in order to maintain an affirmative program of equal employment opportunity for all such employees and applicants for employment; " ”

“ The reason for such exclusions is obvious; employment conditions in foreign countries are beyond the control of Congress. The section does not similarly exempt from the provisions of the Act, U.S.C.itizens employed abroad by U.S. employers. If Section [2000e-1] is to have any meaning at all, therefore, it is necessary to construe it as expressing a Congressional intent to extend the coverage of Title VII to include employment conditions of citizens in overseas operations of domestic corporations at the same time it excludes aliens of the domestic corporation from the operation of the statute. ”

“ If an employer provides telework, modified schedules, or other benefits to employees with school-age children due to school closures or distance learning during the pandemic, are there sex discrimination considerations? (6/11/20)
Employers may provide any flexibilities as long as they are not treating employees differently based on sex or other EEO-protected characteristics. For example, under Title VII, female employees cannot be given more favorable treatment than male employees because of a gender-based assumption about who may have caretaking responsibilities for children. ”

“ They rely principally on two provisions of the statute. First, petitioners argue that the statute's definitions of the jurisdictional terms "employer" and "commerce" are sufficiently broad to include United States firms that employ American citizens overseas. Second, they maintain that the statute's "alien exemption" clause, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1, necessarily implies that Congress intended to protect American citizens from employment discrimination abroad. Petitioners also contend that we should defer to the EEOC's consistently held position that Title VII applies abroad. ”

“ V) (definition of "national of the United States" as "a natural person who is a citizen of the United States . . .") ; the Logan Act, 18 U.S.C. § 953 (applying Act to " [a] ny citizen . . . wherever he may be . . .") . Indeed, after several courts had held that the ADEA did not apply overseas, Congress amended § 11 (f) to provide: "The term 'employee' includes any individual who is a citizen of the United States employed by an employer in a workplace in a foreign country." ”

“ Absent an intention that Title VII apply "outside any State," Congress would have had no reason to craft this extraterritorial exemption. And because only discrimination against aliens is exempted, employers remain accountable for discrimination against United States citizens abroad. ”

“ Earlier in her career, Samuels served as the Vice President for Education & Employment at the National Women’s Law Center, was Labor Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and spent ten years as a senior policy attorney at the EEOC. Samuels graduated magna cum laude, with Phi Beta Kappa honors, from Middlebury College and from Columbia University Law School, where she was a Note Editor for The Columbia Law Review. ”

“ Personnel subject to political activity restrictions All officers, agents, attorneys, and employees of the Commission shall be subject to the provisions of section 7324 of title 5, notwithstanding any exemption contained in such section. ”

“ Similarly, in Keyishian, the Court invalidated a network of state laws that required public employees, including teachers at state universities, to make certifications with respect to their membership in the Communist Party. ”

“ If a reasonable accommodation is needed and requested by an individual with a disability to apply for a job, perform a job, or enjoy benefits and privileges of employment, the employer must provide it unless it would pose an undue hardship, meaning significant difficulty or expense. An employer has the discretion to choose among effective accommodations. Where a requested accommodation would result in undue hardship, the employer must offer an alternative accommodation if one is available absent undue hardship. ”

“ If there is a direct threat that cannot be reduced to an acceptable level, the employer can exclude the employee from physically entering the workplace, but this does not mean the employer may automatically terminate the worker. Employers will need to determine if any other rights apply under the EEO laws or other federal, state, and local authorities. For example, if an employer excludes an employee based on an inability to accommodate a request to be exempt from a vaccination requirement, the employee may be entitled to accommodations such as performing the current position remotely. ”

“ Any time an employee requests a reasonable accommodation, the employer is entitled to understand the disability-related limitation that necessitates an accommodation. If there is no disability-related limitation that requires teleworking, then the employer does not have to provide telework as an accommodation. Or, if there is a disability-related limitation but the employer can effectively address the need with another form of reasonable accommodation at the workplace, then the employer can choose that alternative to telework. ”

“ An employer may only bar an employee from the workplace if, after going through all these steps, the facts support the conclusion that the employee poses a significant risk of substantial harm to himself that cannot be reduced or eliminated by reasonable accommodation. ”

“ The question is really what information to report: is it the fact that an employee—unnamed—has symptoms of COVID-19 or a diagnosis, or is it the identity of that employee? Who in the organization needs to know the identity of the employee will depend on each workplace and why a specific official needs this information. Employers should make every effort to limit the number of people who get to know the name of the employee. ”