The Ugly Truth About Appearance Discrimination and the Beauty of Our Employment Discrimination Law

The keynote speaker for the conference begins by reminding the audience that a mere quarter of a century earlier there was no federal law that expressly prohibited discrimination in employment based on physical appearance. Considering the difficulty of crafting and enacting an appearance-based employment discrimination law should lead to a fuller appreciation of not only our employment discrimination laws generally, but also the Americans with Disabilities Act specifically

Comparison of Employment Disability Discrimination Claims with Other Statutes Across U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission and Fair Employment Practice Agencies Nationally

Although 15 years have passed since the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) became effective, significant employment disparities for persons with disabilities persist. It is important to assess how employer policies and practices may contribute to this disparity. Analyses of employment-related discrimination claims and subsequent legal outcomes are an important source of information about where and how disability employment discrimination is perceived to be happening. Examining the disability employment discrimination charges filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Fair Employment Practice Agencies (FEPAs) within states can inform an understanding of where specific issues continue. This research uses the EEOC\u27s Charge Data System (CDS) (later called the Integrated Mission System, IMS) to explore difference between the filing of discrimination claims at EEOC offices and state FEPA offices. To date, most analyses of these charges have occurred on the EEOC charge data only. Yet of the 328,001 disability employment discrimination charges filed across both agencies during 1993 – 2003, almost half (46 percent) of these charges have been filed in FEPA offices. Analyzing both sets of data provides a fuller picture of disability employment discrimination claims nationally and subsequently further informs our understanding of where problems may be occurring in the implementation of the ADA Title I provisions. For more information, Contact Susanne Bruyère: [email protected]