As you have read, each type of discrimination involves more than different treatment, adverse impact, failure to accommodate, harassment, or retaliation.  The difference in treatment must be caused by race, color and so forth.  The impact must arise because of one of the reasons covered in the laws EEOC administers.  The need for accommodations must be grounded in a person’s religion or disability rather than personal preference.  The harassment must be based upon sex, nation origin and so forth.  The retaliation must be more than a hostile reaction to a complaint.  The original complaint must be a complaint that broke one of the laws the EEOC administers.

This means that unfair treatment is not by itself illegal.  A strong personality clash with your boss or a deep difference of opinion about something at work that leads to a harsh work environment is not by itself illegal.  Harassment of you for any reason other than your race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, or disability is not by itself illegal.  FOR SUCH MATTERS TO BE ILLEGAL, THE EVIDENCE MUST SHOW A LINK BETWEEN THE TREATMENT, THE IMPACT, THE FAILURE TO ACCOMMODATE, THE HARASSMENT OF THE RETALIATION AND YOUR RACE, COLOR, SEX, NATIONAL ORIGIN, RELIGION, AGE, DISABILITY, OR PRIOR COMPLAINT (OR PARTICIPATION).

Discrimination

One of the more common types of discrimination is sexual discrimination. A Federal law, the Equal Pay Act, requires employers to pay all employees equally for equal work, regardless of their gender.  It was passed in 1963 as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

While the Act technically protects both women and men from gender discrimination in pay rates, it was passed to help rectify the problems faced by female workers because of sex discrimination in employment. And in practice, this law has almost always been applied to situations where women are being paid less than men for doing similar jobs.

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This program was developed by the West Virginia State Department of Education, the West Virginia Workplace Education Program, and the Regional Education Service Agency (RESA) V.