Employment discrimination in Colorado
Unfortunately, discrimination by employers occurs quite often. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that each year there are more than 75,000 discrimination charges filed against employers. Finding an employment lawyer can often help employees take action to remedy the situation.
It’s important to understand that employment discrimination can take many forms, and occur against many different types of people. In order to count as illegal, the employment discrimination must be on the basis of some characteristic or class protected by law. Protected classes include people with disabilities, people 40 years old and above, and people who have been treated differently because of their race or national origin, their sex, their sexual orientation, or their religion.
In brief, the types of employment discrimination include:
- Disability discrimination
- Age discrimination
- Racial discrimination
- Gender discrimination
- Religious discrimination
- Sexual orientation discrimination
How to prove that you are experiencing employment discrimination
Generally speaking, discrimination can be proven in two ways: disparate treatment, or disparate impact. Disparate treatment is what most people think of when they think of employment discrimination. This happens when an employer overtly mistreats an employee because of their membership in some protected group. For example, if you are denied a promotion and told that it is because of your race, that is disparate treatment race discrimination.
But discrimination does not have to be explicit or intentional to be illegal. Discrimination can also occur when employers adopt policies that simply result in certain groups of people not being hired or promoted, even if the policy itself does not mention those groups. Say, for example, that an employer requires a high school diploma for manual laborers and there is no job-related reason to require the degree. As a result, members of certain ethnic and racial groups are hired significantly less frequently. This would be illegal discrimination based on the disparate impact the requirement had on these groups.
Taking action against employment discrimination
If you live in Colorado and believe that you have been discriminated against by your employer, it is important that you talk to an experienced lawyer as soon as possible. The time for pursuing discrimination claims is very short; often action has to be taken within 180 days of the discriminatory incident. Call the Law Offices of Paul Maxon now at 303.473.9999 so that we can help you protect your rights.