401(k) documents are notoriously mystifying—and notoriously ignored. “I must say,” admitted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at recent oral argument of the United States Supreme Court, “I don’t read all the mailings that I get about my investments.” For about 72 million American workers, 401(k)s are “nest eggs.” Employees expect their 401(k) investments, along with social […]

The federal overtime law, called the Fair Labor Standards Act, exempts employers from paying overtime wages to workers who are classified as “executive,” “administrative” or “professional” employees.  These exemptions are colloquially called “white collar” exemptions. State overtime laws often have similar “white collar” exemptions. Applying these exemptions is far more nuanced than their moniker suggests. […]

The Federal Fair Housing Act, along with many state and local laws, prohibits gender discrimination in housing, including sexual harassment. It is illegal for landlords, property managers, real estate agents, and maintenance staff to demand sexual favors in exchange for access to housing or repairs. They also cannot create a hostile environment for tenants based […]

A few months ago, I blogged about the considerable evidence of gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the medical profession. Here, I turn to the persistent racial and ethnic disparities among physicians. Like gender disparities, racial and ethnic disparities in medicine manifest in multiple forms—in pay, promotions, and harassment from colleagues and patients. A growing […]

When will #MeToo come to medicine? While high-profile cases of sexual misconduct have rocked individual medical institutions—Yale in 2014 and 2015; USC in 2017; and Michigan State this year—the profession has escaped the level of public scrutiny sweeping entertainment, media, academia, and politics. And it’s not for lack of evidence. A study appearing in the […]

So, you signed a severance agreement. The agreement says that you waived claims under a lengthy list of laws that you’ve never really heard of. In exchange, your former company gave you a few weeks’ salary. But you think you were the victim of discrimination, and you want to sue the company. Does the severance […]

You may remember that about a year a half ago, the Department of Labor, under President Obama, issued a rule that was going change what’s called the “salary level” for “white collar” workers. The salary level is part of the federal overtime rules. Those rules basically say: if you’re a white collar worker and you […]

In the past year, lawmakers in Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, New York City, and Philadelphia have passed “salary history laws.” These new laws make it illegal for employers to ask job applicants about their current salaries or the salaries they earned at previous jobs. To put it simply, these laws take your salary history off the […]

Early last month, amid the ongoing controversy sparked by North Carolina’s anti-transgender legislation, the New York State Assembly passed the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA). The Act aims to protect New Yorkers from discrimination in housing, education, and employment based on their gender identity or expression. Presently, both New York and Federal law lack such […]

Last weekend, a group of determined NYU undergrads staged a 30-hour occupation of NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life. The students, members of the Incarceration to Education Coalition (IEC), presented a simple demand: Ban the Box! Like many universities, NYU still asks applicants questions about their criminal and educational disciplinary histories. Literally, such questions appear next to […]

Bureaucracy is boring. “Regulatory Plans,” “Notice and Comment,” “Final Rules”—the Administrative State tends to glaze eyes. But for a moment last July, the media set its gaze on bureaucracy. That’s because a bureaucratic agency, the Department of Labor, proposed a rule that could increase the wages of millions of workers. Specifically, the DOL proposal makes […]

There are several ways to get at this question. The campaign gristmills produce ample material –comments to the press, debate statements, stump speeches, tweets, YouTube videos. And, of course, with a few notable exceptions, most candidates have some legislative record. Several commentators have already sifted through this content to discern positions on pay equity (including, […]

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The Month’s purpose, according to a recent Presidential Proclamation, is to refocus the public on “forg[ing] an America where no one suffers the hurt and hardship that domestic violence causes.” Prompted in part by this message, the public has once again turned its attention to the most publicized corporate effort […]

Earlier this month, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act—a bill requiring employers with at least 15 employees to provide 10 days of paid vacation. The Bill currently has a whopping 0 cosponsors, which is exactly the same number of co-sponsors Representative Alan Grayson’s Paid Vacation Act (a similar bill) received in the last […]

On April 15, thousands of workers and their allies rallied for better wages.  The Fight for $15 has expanded from a small group of fast food workers to thousands of retail employees, child care workers, home care providers, and adjunct professors. Indeed, news outlets are now reporting on how presidential campaigns will respond to the […]