Racial Discrimination Lawyer in NYC

Have you been exposed to a racist comment or image at work, or passed over for a job or promotion due to something like your race, skin color, or country of origin? These and other types of race-based discriminations in the workplace are illegal, and our qualified team of race discrimination attorneys is here to help you protect your rights. 

Use this page as your roadmap to understanding the necessary requirements for building a strong case. If you feel confident about your claim, contact Moses Law, P.C. today to schedule a complimentary case assessment.

Before You Call, Ensure You Have a Good Case

Understanding what constitutes racial discrimination in the workplace is the first step.  Racial discrimination, in brief, can take many forms, including but not limited to discriminatory hiring practices, discriminatory pay, promotion and advancement discrimination, harassment based on race, and discriminatory disciplinary actions. Unfortunately, victim accounts aren’t the single piece of evidence needed to make a good case. 

Before contacting a racial discrimination lawyer in NYC, first, review the necessary criteria outlined below: 

How to Prove Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

Hiring, firing, salary increases, and job advancements based on race are discriminatory and illegal. In order to successfully prove your case, however, you need to be able to clearly show that racial discrimination occurred. We recommend that victims document as much as possible in order to meet the minimum burden of proof, including:  

1. Written or oral statements
2. Pay stubs and schedules
3. Any race-based images or other visual media
4. Witness statements and other comparative treatment evidence
5. Any past discrimination that has occurred at the company and your employer’s complaint procedure

Racial Harassment at Work. What Does It Look Like?

Racial harassment is a violation of federal and state law and occurs in the workplace when a person or group of people continually depict signs of intolerance against another based on that person’s color, culture, descent, language or religion. Such misconduct may be verbal, physical, written, or visual.  Race discrimination is not limited to two or more races.  It can happen within the same race as well if you are made to feel threatened or intimidated or otherwise uncomfortable in the workplace.

Racial Discrimination in the Workplace: Examples

Because no smart employer will admit to racism or illegal conduct, it is important to be able to recognize both intentional race discrimination and disparate impact discrimination when they occur in your workplace. Some of the more common forms of racial discrimination include:

• Someone subjecting you to racial slurs.
• An employer refusing to consider you for a role based on your race.
• A coworker or superior telling racially insensitive or ethnic jokes in your presence.
• An employer refusing to hire you based on your race.
• A coworker or superior making offensive comments based on race.
• An employer offering you a lower rate or inferior terms based on your race.
• Being denied training or promotional opportunities because of your race, or being demoted, disciplined, or fired for the same reason.

Here are some examples of situations in which our race discrimination lawyers secured justice for race discrimination victims:

• One client was not promoted because he was African American. We uncovered discrimination because he was more experienced and had better annual review scores than the white employee who was promoted.
• An employer who regularly told race-related jokes was found to have illegally discriminated against a Black employee (even though she never actually called our client Black or used racial slurs).
• A small business systematically let go of most of the employees of non-white ethnic groups during a layoff.
• One of our clients was repeatedly passed over for a promotion in favor of less qualified Caucasian employees.

Racial Discrimination At Work Examples

Racial discrimination can take many forms.  Some of them can be blatant.  Others are more subtle.  Some of the more common forms of racial discrimination are:

 

The common thread is it can create an unequal and potentially hostile work environment.

Dealing With Racial Harassment At Work

Hiring, firing, salary increases, and job advancements based on race are discriminatory and illegal.  Any victim should document as much as possible:  

1. Racial statements made by the employer.
2. Any race based images or other visual media
3. Witness statements and other comparative treatment evidence
4. Research any past discrimination and your employer’s complaint procedure

Any such information should then immediately be brought to the attention of the appropriate management team.  It should also be presented to a qualified race discrimination attorney, like one of our experienced lawyers at the offices of Yuriy Moshes.  They are ready to help you go over what you have gathered to see how it can be best used for your benefit and your case.

Employment Laws That Protect You From Race Discrimination In NYC

The history of legislation protecting people from varying types of discrimination dates back to just after the Civil War.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first major civil rights law after the Civil War.  Congress passed it in 1865, but it wasn’t enacted until 1870.

The Act  provided for equal citizenship for all male citizens born in the U.S.  The aim of the legislation was civil protections for African Americans.  

This is the legal foundation for employees to sue over race-based discrimination.  While employment discrimination has been illegal since 1866, many issues and loopholes weren’t remedied with the passage of new legislation nearly 100 years later.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 

The next major piece of civil rights legislation was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was signed into law on July 2 of that year.  The law forbade discrimination based on race, religion, color, sex, or nation of origin.

Title VII governs job-related discrimination based in organizations with fifteen or more employees.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with state agencies across the country, advocate on behalf of employees experiencing employment law race discrimination as defined by Title VII.

Laws were passed later to fill in gaps not addressed by Title VII.  These included  Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.   They prohibited discrimination based on pregnancy, age, or disabilities.

Under Title VII, you need to file a charge within six calendar months from the day of the alleged discriminatory occurrence.  The deadline can be extended out to 300 calendar days if a state or local agency prohibits, by law, the same type of employment discrimination.

New York State Human Rights Laws

New York has led the fight in the United States with passage of the New York Human Rights Law.  Passed in 1945 (and originally called the Law Against Discrimination), it’s the more common name for Article 15 of the New York Executive Law (Title 18 of the Consolidated Laws of New York).  It forbids job-related discrimination based on sex, relgion, color or national origin in places of employment with four or more people.  The New York Human Rights Commission oversees the law.  It enforces the law through a combination of the following:

• Prosecution of illegal discrmination
• Receiving, investigating, and resolving discrimination complaints
• Creating programs and campaigns designed to educate the public and corporate world about the effects of discrimination as well as rights and responsibilities under the law
• Developing human rights polices and legislation for New York

That law was followed later by the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (2002) and the Gender Expression Non-Discrmination Act (2018).  The New York Human Rights Law was also expanded in 2019 to cover domestic workers, independent contractors, and other similarly self-employed workers from workplace discrimination.

Under the New York Human Rights Law, a person has twelve months from teh date of the alleged discrimination to file a complaint, or 36 months if it involves gender-based discrimination.

New York City Human Rights Laws

New York City has its own human rights laws and civil rights protections as well.  The New York City Human Rights Law prohibits discrmination in the workplace and encourages fair practices in housing and public accommodations.  It also prohibits discrimination in lending practices, law enforcement, and provides protections against retaliation for reporting/filing complaints against discriminatory practices.  It provides for reasonable accomodations to allow a person to do his or her job.

The list of forbidden actions under the New York City Human Rights Law is extensive.  It prohibits discrimination in the hiring process; salary and benefits; performance reviews;  promotions; demotions, discipline and temrinations; and any other decision that affect the status of someone’s employment.  The list of protected classes under the New York City Human Rights Law is expansive as well.  Age, immigration/citizenship, color, disability, sexual orientation/gender identity, marital/partnership, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, or veteran status are all covered under the law.

Under the New York City Human Rights Law, a person has twelve months from the date of the alleged discrimination to file a complaint, or 36 months if it involves gender-based discrimination.

FAQ:

Can I Sue My Employer for Racial Discrimination? 

Under federal and state law, employers, potential employers, workplace superiors, and co-workers can all be sued for racial discrimination. If you believe that you have been racially discriminated against at your place of employment, your next step will be to work with a racial discrimination lawyer in order to determine if you have a winnable case. An experienced attorney will be able to guide you through the process of procuring evidence and proving your case, and will also be able to perform additional research into your employer’s history on your behalf.

Contact a Race Discrimination Attorney to Help With Your Case

Despite the great strides made in recent decades, racism still runs rampant in various parts of the corporate and professional worlds. You may face yourself with the daunting choice of whether to pursue what you believe to be racism in the workplace or let it go in favor of not pursuing the filing of a complaint. If that’s you, let experienced attorneys guide you through the process.