The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) has released proposed new regulations that would require state agencies and the like to create an Equal Employment Opportunity Plan.
These regulations would not apply to private employers so many of you can dispense with the worrying.
The proposed regulations will replace the current ones. The
For nearly six months, public hearings at the CHRO were on hold because Governor Malloy did not reappoint the human rights referees. As a result, cases that had been pending at the CHRO went nowhere — fast.
However, that is changing. Two new human rights referees were appointed this month and a third will
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today gave some teeth to the “ministerial exception” that, in essence, precludes some employees of religious institutions from suing them under federal discrimination laws.
I’ve discussed the exception in various posts over the years here and here. Its been supported in the Second Circuit and by the Connecticut Supreme Court, but until now, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t spoken directly on the issue. The SCOTUS blog has already posted its recap of the entire case here.
My quick reaction to the decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC (download here), is that the notion of a “ministerial exception” being recognized by the Supreme Court isn’t that much of a surprise. To find otherwise, as the Court stated in its opinion, would be untenable and go against all of the Courts of Appeals. “We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.”
Indeed, the court concludes:
We agree that there is such a ministerial exception. The members of a religious group put their faith in the hands of their ministers. Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.
What is more notable is that there appears to be a broad definition of who is a “minister”. (And, to state the obvious, rabbis and the like are obviously included). The court took pains to point out that it hasn’t adopted “a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.” But it concluded that “given all the circumstances of her employment”, it applies here.Continue Reading BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court Supports Fairly Broad “Ministerial Exception” to Anti-Discrimination Laws
Earlier this week, I wrote about the perception among some that the CHRO has been retaining more cases for investigation by letting more cases through the Merit Assessment Review. These cases that used to be dismissed — mainly “frivolous” ones as I’ve collectively termed them — mean more headaches for employers who have to spend time and money defending against them.
(To simplify the blog post for readers, I labelled all these cases that had been dismissed at MAR together as “frivolous” even though there are technically different reasons why the CHRO may dismiss a case on Merit Assessment Review, including that there is “no reasonable possibility” that an investigation will lead to a reasonable cause finding of discrimination. )
In response to my blog post, CHRO Principal Attorney Charles Krich crafted a reply. While it is attached to the original blog post, I thought it notable enough that it warranted its own blog post. While he indicated that there were no statistics yet available, he “would not be surprised if fewer cases are being dismissed for no reasonable possibility” under the Merit Assessment Review.
Here’s his reply in full (my further comments are below):
Continue Reading CHRO Attorney Agrees Emphasis at Agency “Has Shifted From MAR to Mediation”
As I’ve noted before, the CHRO procedures were changed effective October 1, 2011. One question that we had at the time was whether the CHRO would be retaining more discrimination claims by employees for investigation — getting past the Merit Assessment Review stage.
Previously,
There are lots of items I had hoped to write about but, as many of you have observed, there’s only so much time in the week. So, it’s time to bring back the recurring “Quick Hits” feature to highlight some tidbits worthy of your consideration:
Did he or didn’t he?
That’s what political pundits and others have been debating the last few weeks regarding presidential candidate Herman Cain. But a more interesting question is whether claims of sexual harassment are on the rise or not.
Indeed, lost in the public discourse is a fact that isn’t talked about a lot:
If you’ve been with this blog since it’s inception, you probably recall a few posts here, here, and here that I did early on about what employers needed to know about the breastfeeding in the workplace laws.
Now, the CHRO in conjunction with the Connecticut Departments of Public Health and Labor, and the
CT-N, Connecticut’s equivalent to C-SPAN, taped last week’s program on the changes to the CHRO procedures.
Even better, though, is that the program is now available on-demand.
From my vantage point, the most useful part of the presentation for companies starts at around the 35:00 mark where the CHRO starts to explain the law
Continuing my series of posts on the public program produced by the CHRO on new Public Act 11-237 (for prior posts go here and here), the remainder of the program focused on the changes to the CHRO procedures including a new early mediation option.
Various legal staff members provided the details on the new