Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Workplace
Is it unjust for an employer to deny individuals employment opportunities based on their sexual orientation? Workplace discrimination is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although prohibited, discrimination in the recruiting and hiring process and the workplace is still a widely practiced and controversial issue among many communities. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Although Title VII prohibits discrimination in the workplace because of sex, since its enactment, courts have struggled in applying its prohibition
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For years, many have struggled with this concept, but currently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (from here on referred to as EEOC) interprets and enforces Title VII's prohibition of sex discrimination as forbidding any employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The morality of the issue of discrimination in the workplace is determined on which theory is being applied to the situation, one such theory that will be applied to this question is deontology. The theory of deontology says the determination of morality of an action is based if it works as a general rule or not. The action is moral if it works as a general rule, or the action is immoral if it does not work as a general rule. Based on the general rule that discrimination in the workplace is immoral, the discrimination based on sexual orientation is also wrong and in this case immoral. Therefore, during the recruitment and hiring process and in the workplace, it is unjust for an employer to deny LGBT individuals employment opportunities based on their sexual orientation and that practice should be considered sex discrimination in the workplace to allow those individuals to be …show more content…
This can be concluded based on the general rule that any form of discrimination in the workplace is immoral therefore discrimination based on sexual orientation is immoral. Secondly, because it can be suggested that the intentions of employers to discriminate is immoral, the act of an employer denying individuals employment opportunities based on their sexual orientation is immoral. Workplace discrimination generally and from an ethical standpoint is immoral, defining what that looks like and who it applies too seems foolish. It is a human right that one should be judged on their actions and body of work, and not based on anything like gender, race, religion, background, and especially their sexual orientation. Finally, using another human to meet the desires of organizational leaders or societal opinions is wrong according to Kantians, the actions are considered immoral. Therefore, based on the application of the deontology theory, it can be concluded that it is immoral for an employer to deny individuals employment opportunities based on their sexual
Historically, females have been discriminated against in the United States based solely on their gender. Gender or sex discrimination may be described as the unfair treatment of a person in their employment because of that person's sex. It is illegal to discriminate based on sex and it may result in negative effects on employment include pay, position and title, advancements and training opportunities or whether or not an individual is hired or fired from a job.
Sexual orientation discrimination is the unfair treatment of someone solely based on their sexual orientation. Unlike sexual harassment and gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination is not protected under Title VII. However, there are state and local laws that prohibit it (Moran,
Congress passed and the President signed into law a provision outlawing private acts of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Called the Public Accommodations Equal Access Act, it forbids discriminations regarding sexual orientation in hotels, motels, restaurants, and eating establishments of all kinds as well as bars, barbershops, gas stations, and entertainment establishments. Congress relied on the commerce clause to justify the law.
In September 2011, the United States lifted the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (DADT), which restricted gay, lesbian, and bisexuals from openly serving in the military. This was the first time in American history in which people of every sexual orientation could serve openly (“11 Facts About,” n.d.). This was a momentous occasion for some and not so much for others. For those military members that had served in secret and those members that were firmly against gays and lesbians, this repeal had different meaning. Both groups contained members that have served in the military for years and were products of the Former President Bill Clinton’s 1993 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. For many soldiers of this era, communication issues arose due to a pre-existing mentality, learned rules and regulations in services reinforced for two decades and the general cultural within combat related fields.
Employee discrimination occurs when an employer harasses or terminate an employee purely because of race, religion, gender, age, national origin, and/or disabilities. While there have been great improvements in eliminating these discriminatory actions, sexual orientation and/or gender identity based discrimination isn’t
Sexual harassment is an important issue in every business; if left unattended it could cost companies millions in damages. In 1980 the Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From 1978 to 1980, sexual harassment cases brought against companies cost them $189 million. This number rose to $267 million from 1985-1987. Damages are just measured only by numbers. Sexual harassment can cause harm to a company's image, reputation, customers, as well as their revenue.
Tangibly speaking, discrimination occurring on the basis of sexual orientation, while small in aggregate numbers, reaches the same rates as gendered discrimination against women in the workplace, when measured at a per capita rate, and creates a situation in which homosexual and transgendered individuals typically earn 10 or more percent less income than their heterosexual peers (Croteau, 1996). With this, sexual orientation-based discrimination is a significant problem in American society. In a broad sense, the pervasiveness of this discrimination is facilitated by the significant permeation of religious bias into America's ostensibly secular democracy and civil society. Tangibly, large religious organizations such as the Catholic and Mormon Churches have waged proverbial wars against LGBT individuals, seeking to deny them of equal rights in many American states, with a notable example being the battle over Proposition 8 in the state of California (Wilcox & Iida, 2011, 181-183). Furthermore, anti-gay hate speech emerging from groups such as Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church has permeated the country's public sphere, and thus contributed to a climate that is hostile to LGBT individuals, and which has unfortunately seeped into the business environment, in both systematic and idiosyncratic ways (Barrett-Fox, 2010, 4-5).
My major is Human Resources. The problem is sexual harassment in the work place. Sexual harassment affects everyone in the work environment. Sexual harassment has been a problem for years. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sexual harassment includes: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature ... when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment. The first sexual harassment case was in 1976. (2006) Also, these cases have been proven fraudulent. Each cases have to be exam very closely, because some companies have paid millions of dollars due to law suits. Sexual harassment cases are very sensitive, because a person can lose a job, marriage, and his or her reputation.
Everyone will have a least one job in their lifetime, and knowing how to recognize discrimination, so they are able to seek the proper help when needed to is very important. Discrimination in the work place can happen to anyone, and that is why people need to know the laws that protect employees against discrimination, ways employers can prevent discrimination, and the effects of discrimination in the workplace.
Introduction Corridos are a genre of music known as ballads that talk about the triumphs and or struggles of people, these songs are more known to tell stories of their community and these sorts of songs are more positively oriented. These songs aim to tell stories of immigrants who come to the U.S. for a better life and the struggles they face (Aguilera, 2011). It has been around dating back to the 19th century and has evolved over time and because of that a new sub-genre of corridos was emerging which would be known as ‘narcocorridos’. Narcocorridos are a sub-genre of corridos but in this case, they don’t talk about the struggles or stories of the Mexican people, instead their focus is on the drug traffickers and cartel leaders (Simonett
Female inequality in workplace is one of the harmful aspect that is afflicting the entire
All over the world, we hear about people treating each other prejudicially depending on their background, ethnicity, or sex orientation. Workplaces should be free from all personal biases but unfortunately, we hear about employees being discriminated against, almost, on a daily basis. Workplace discrimination can be described as treating an individual or a group of people differently than others. It also can take more serious and threatening forms such as sexual harassment. It can be expressed in the form of offensive jokes, unwelcomed body contacts, inappropriate gestures, or even direct sexual contact.
The dictionary defines discrimination as the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or identified sex and sexual orientation. The term LGBT stands for, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. These terms refer to sexual orientation and also gender identity. Every day people of the LGBT community suffer wrongful terminations and oppression in their schools for their sexual orientation or identified gender.
sexual to get a job, as it would be for a heterosexual. Companies and other major firms would rather choose someone that is straight then someone having the same sex partner. Sometimes homosexuals get the job but they do not have the same rights as any other employee would. Though out the United States there has been more then a dozen of cases dealing with equal employment opportunities. The university of Pittsburgh denies their lesbian and gay employees equal compensation by refusing to provide their1 partners the same health insurance benefits that they provide to spouses of heterosexual employees. Gays and lesbians should have the same rights to have relationships as everyone else, and should have the same employment opportunities.
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.