Course Project: Employment Discrimination

Introduction:  READ EVERYTHING!

Your Course Project for this term is to write a three to five page (excluding the title and reference page), double-spaced mini research memo with your subject as Employment Discrimination Harassment Policies. Keep the paper in the order given.  Everything you need to know about the project resides on this page. The goals of these projects are to demonstrate problem solving, organization, critical thinking, data research, and analysis. FOLLOW all INSTRUCTIONS!

Course Project Deliverables:

You will have one deliverable worth 340 points and due in Module/Week 8.

1.     Research Memo: Answer questions provided below and write a three to five page research memo (excluding title and reference pages).

Employment discrimination law is about prohibiting or discouraging behaviors in the workplace regarding differences in people. It has evolved over the years significantly, and the passage of Title VII, the U.S. Civil Rights Act, has made more changes to how the United States defines the right to work free from harassment and discrimination, than any other law, case, or regulation in the nation.

Guidelines:

• Your research memo must be written in APA format, include a title and reference page. Please use the APA Template  (Links to an external site.)to complete your work.
• Use a 12-point Times Roman or Arial font, double-space it, and have 1 inch margins as a standard format.
• DeVry University policies are in effect, including the plagiarism policy. Cite in text when quoting (copying information word for word) or using words and thoughts that are not your own.
• Make sure to cite references. This includes the cases you find in our book!  You must give credit where credit is due.  I would put the references on the last page.
• Graphs and tables are not needed and should not be used in this paper.
• A quality paper should include all the elements of good writing: grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.  All will be taken into consideration when points are awarded.
• Proofread your papers before submitting; spell-check is not foolproof.
• The Course Project Research Memo is due in Module/Week 8 of the course.

Course Project Memo Assignment:

Answer each of the following questions below. You should use your textbook along with outside AUTHORITATIVE sources to answer these questions. (Do not use Wikipedia or law firm blogs!) Do not write a book; answer the questions succinctly.  Make sure to use definitions from our book and examples of each of the terms used below.  You can paraphrase or incorporate each question into the paper, so that the paper flows. For example:  A person who is harassed in the workplace must allege…..

Body of the paper:  (You can use headings if you like, but remember this is a paper.  Do not just put the questions and answers!)

A.     What must a person who is claiming he or she was harassed in the workplace allege in order to first state a case with the EEOC for each of the following types of harassment? (Please spell out what EEOC means!)

***Make sure you define all legal concepts using our book.  You should explain them in your own words!  I want to see that you understood the material and learned something, not that you can copy and paste the book!

i.     Sexual harassment: Quid pro quo

ii.     Sexual harassment: Hostile environment

iii.     Religious harassment

iv.     Racial harassment

B.     Explain the difference between sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and sexual orientation discrimination, as those terms are used legally. How do you recognize which discrimination has occurred? List and describe common employer defenses to sexual harassment claims as well.

C.     Provide one example of a behavior that could be found to be both a hostile environment and quid pro quo forms of sexual harassment at the same time. Explain how a person could argue that this behavior at work was illegal.

D.     Give the main legal reason why every company should have a valid written policy against all forms of harassment (besides the fact it is the “right” thing to do.) With this one you should incorporate an article in the news from the recent past (within the last 5 years) that pertains to this question. Think “Karens” in the news!  Should the “Karen’s” be fired for their behavior?

E.     Can an employer require that only females serve female customers and only males serve male customers? Explain your answer using legal terms that we learned during class.

F.     Make sure you define each of the following terms below according to our book. Provide how many employees must an employer or company have working for it to be subject to the following laws. Also explain if the employer or company does not have that number of employees, how does the law protect employees from these types of discriminations? Are there any defenses that the employer may use that might allow them to discriminate?

a.  The ADA (Please spell out what this is!)

b.   Pregnancy Discrimination Act

c.   Title VII

d.   ADEA (Please spell out what this is!)

 

In the last part of your memo, you will answer the following:

Assume YOU work for a company that has a sexual anti-harassment policy, but not an LGBTQA or racial anti-harassment policy. Write a short memo to your boss (the HR Director) as to why you believe it would make sense to revamp the company policies to include these and or other forms of harassment. What laws recently (in 2020) changed that your boss might not know about?

Include one example of a real situation where a policy may have protected a company from liability or stopped harassment from happening. What did the company do?  What happened to the employee who did the harassment? Make sure you explain the relevant facts of the situation and the law that we learned that applies.  You may use a news article, YouTube video, TED talk etc…(You can also find case examples on the EEOC website (Links to an external site.).) Cite that article/case/situation in your memo to your boss.  Make sure you explain the relevant facts and the laws!

 

Make sure you have a reference page at the end of your paper with all sources that you used.