Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
It’s wonderful that the legislation in our country has made so many strides to recognize women’s rights to live and work alongside men without fear of harassment or intimidation. Unfortunately, as has happened with so many other progressive civil rights, what the law says, and what actually happens don’t always coincide.
Companies are not legally allowed to fire employees or refuse to hire candidates based on their gender or as the result of a discrimination lawsuit, but there are other ways employers can (and do) retaliate. Most women who speak out against male colleagues who have harassed them suffer from both personal and professional estrangement. It’s easy enough for employers to find seemingly unrelated reasons for firing their workers and almost impossible for those workers to prove the root cause of their dismissal really stemmed from the fact they dared to defend their own civil rights.
Even companies that publicly claim to support their female employees and condemn sexual harassment are rarely doing more than paying lip service to the law. For example, 21st Century Fox recently released a statement claiming they do not tolerate any behavior that is disrespectful or creates an uncomfortable environment for its employees, but the company has allegedly been failing to live up to that promise for decades. Continue reading ›