People are aware of many different examples of illegal discrimination, whether it is based on an employee’s race, gender, or age. However, there are other types of unlawful discrimination that disrupt the lives of workers in Santa Barbara, and across the whole state of California, that may receive less attention. For example, some people may not realize that it is illegal to discriminate against an employee because of their disability.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission states that disability discrimination is prohibited in the workplace. According to the law, covered employers cannot treat job applicants or employees unfavorably solely because they suffer from a disability. In fact, not only is it unlawful for covered employers to discriminate against workers because of disabilities they have, but they are also not allowed to discriminate against them because of suspected disabilities or because of previous disabilities they have dealt with. For example, if an employee was diagnosed with cancer, but their cancer has been in remission, they cannot be subjected to discrimination.
Unfortunately, this type of discrimination will continue to throw off the lives of workers with disabilities (as well as some who may not even have a disability). If you think that you have gone through disability discrimination, or have been treated unfairly because of your race, gender, or for another unlawful reason, you should take action. Also, please realize that this blog post was put together for general informational reasons and does not serve as any kind of replacement for legal counsel.