Supreme Court rules to protect employees who complain about discrimination in the workplace from retaliation
Retaliation cases are a subset of workplace discrimination cases that are growing in number. This is due to the fact that it is often easier for employees to demonstrate that they were retaliated against than that they were victims of discrimination in the first place.
In two major federal statues, Congress has provided explicit protection against retaliation. No such protection exists in the portion of the age-discrimination law that applies to federal government workers. Also lacking is explicit language in a post-Civil War-era statute giving “all persons” the same right “as is enjoyed by white citizens” when dealing with contracts of employment.
The Court interpreted those two statues and adopted a broad interpretation of workers’ rights under two federal civil rights laws ruling that employees are protected from retaliation when they complain about discrimination in the workplace.
