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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Ephraim McDowell Health, Inc., Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, Inc., and EMHFL, Inc., a health care system headquartered in Danville, Kentucky, will pay $335,000 and provide other relief to settle a sex discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the suit, around October 2021, Ephraim McDowell rejected a female employee’s bid for promotion to an administrator position when the

WASHINGTON – Apple, Inc. unlawfully failed to accommodate an employee’s Jewish faith and subsequently fired him because of his religion and in retaliation for complaining of religion-based discrimination, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleged in a lawsuit filed today.

The EEOC’s suit said a 16-year employee at the Reston, Virginia Apple Store, who worked as an Apple “genius” consistently received positive performance reviews. However, beginning in August 2023, shortly after he converted to

MOBILE, Ala. – Bollinger Shipyards, LLC, a provider of marine construction, repair and conversion services employing more than 300 workers at 10 shipyards located across the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts, violated federal law by excluding an employee from work because she used a prescription medication to treat opioid dependency, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

The EEOC charged that Bollinger placed the worker on involuntary indefinite unpaid leave

MOBILE, Ala. – Cosmos, a restaurant in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi operated by Smoke BBQ LLC, violated federal law by firing a server because of her pregnancy, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

The EEOC’s suit charged that in November 2023, the server told her colleagues about her pregnancy shortly after she started working at the restaurant. The next day, after Cosmos managers heard about her pregnancy, she

WASHINGTON – Equinox Holdings, Inc., which owns and operates fitness facilities nationwide, will pay $48,000 and provide other relief to resolve a disability and sex discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the EEOC’s suit, Equinox rejected a female applicant with endometriosis and experience working for other fitness companies after she requested that her second-round interview for a front desk associate position be delayed

MOBILE, Ala. – Ground Zero Biloxi LLC, which operates a blues club located in Biloxi, Mississippi, violated federal law by subjecting an assistant manager to sexual harassment by one of its co-owners and firing the worker for complaining about the co-owner’s harassment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.

The EEOC charged that one of the blues club’s co-owners subjected the assistant manager to a campaign of sexual harassment

WASHINGTON – Security Assurance Management, Inc. (SAM), a security firm operating in the Washington area, violated federal law when it removed a special police officer from her assignment because its client did not want her working at its jobsite while pregnant, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed Jan. 21.

According to the lawsuit, SAM failed to provide the employee with both breaks for pumping breast milk and an appropriate

WASHINGTON – Northern Virginia Surgery Center, LLC (NVSC), which operates an outpatient surgery center, will pay $50,000 and provide programmatic relief to resolve a disability and age discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the lawsuit, when an older radiologic technologist requested an extension of her medical leave to recover from carpel tunnel surgery, NVSC terminated her and replaced her with two significantly younger

WASHINGTON – Equinox Holdings, Inc. (Equinox), which owns and operates fitness facilities and gyms nationwide, illegally discriminated against a woman who suffers from endometriosis on the basis of disability and sex when it failed to hire her as a front desk associate at its sports club in Washington because of her “monthly cycle” and potential need for a reasonable accommodation, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged in a lawsuit filed today. The agency also

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today released its Annual Report on the Federal Workforce for fiscal year (FY) 2021. The report provides the state of equal employment opportunity (EEO) throughout the federal government including benchmarks against which individual agencies can gauge their performance.

The report’s first section identified underlying FY 2021 trends in federal sector complaint processing. Main findings included:

• 33,506 counselings completed, with 36.5% resulting in a formal complaint filing

WASHINGTON – Alto Experience, Inc., a ride hailing company that currently operates in Texas, Florida, and California, and previously operated in the District of Columbia and Virginia, violated federal law when it denied reasonable accommodations and employment to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals who applied to work as personal drivers, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleged in a lawsuit filed today.

According to the lawsuit, Alto refused to hire qualified deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals

WASHINGTON – Susan Harthill, a lawyer and executive leader with 30 years of employment law experience, joined the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as the Director of Appellate Review Programs (ARP) in the agency’s Office of Federal Operations (OFO) on Nov. 18, following her selection in early October.

In the role, Harthill will lead the program responsible for adjudicating appeals of decisions on employment discrimination complaints filed by federal employees and applicants for federal

WASHINGTON – Inova Surgery Center, LLC, which operates outpatient surgery centers in Northern Virginia, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) by firing an employee because of her disability and age, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a suit filed today. 

According to the lawsuit, when a 52-year-old radiologic technician requested an extension of her medical leave to recover from carpal tunnel surgery, Inova

MOBILE, Ala.  – Hank’s Furniture, Inc. (HFI), a nationwide furniture retailer, will pay $110,000 and furnish other relief to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the lawsuit, a former assistant manager at HFI’s Pensacola, Florida, location notified the company that her religious beliefs prevented her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Rather than discuss the employee’s religious beliefs to determine the

WASHINGTON – Didlake, Inc., a government contractor that provides janitorial and maintenance employees to federal worksites throughout Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, will pay $1,017,500 and provide programmatic relief to resolve a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the lawsuit, Didlake, a nonprofit that employs a significant number of employees with disabilities, failed to provide communications accommodations, including American Sign

MOBILE, Ala. and CHICAGO – Harmony Hospitality LLC, which operates a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel in Dothan, Alabama, and LAS Hardwoods, a hardwood flooring company in the Chicago area, violated federal civil rights law when they each discriminated against an employee because of his sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or failure to adhere to gender stereotypes, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in two separate lawsuits filed today.

According to the Alabama lawsuit

WASHINGTON – Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Charlotte A. Burrows today issued a joint statement to mark the first anniversary of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act):

“On Dec. 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law much-needed and long overdue workplace protections for pregnant and nursing workers. We celebrate the first anniversary of legislation that

WASHINGTON – Yaw Gyebi Jr. has been chosen as the new director of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) New York District Office, the federal agency announced today. Gyebi, who most recently served as the founding chief of enforcement and investigations at the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, started today.

“Mr. Gyebi brings a wealth of knowledge from his work as a senior state government leader with extensive enforcement, employment law and labor relations experience,”

WASHINGTON – Triple Canopy, Inc. a Reston, Virginia-based company providing protective services to federal agencies, will pay a former employee $110,759 and provide other relief to settle a religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Triple Canopy denied a religious accommodation to an employee who held a Christian belief that men must wear beards because the employee was unable

WASHINGTON – Brett Brenner has been appointed to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Deputy Chief Operating Officer position, effective Dec. 3, 2023, the federal agency announced today. The position is a key Senior Executive Service (SES) managerial position at the agency. Brenner has served as the acting deputy chief operating officer for the EEOC since July 2022, responsible for oversight of financial management, security issues, and internal equal employment opportunity and civil rights matters

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) detailed its financial management and provided a high-level overview of key performance results in its Fiscal Year 2023 Agency Financial Report (AFR) released today.

The EEOC strategically focused its resources in fiscal year 2023 to combat discrimination using all of its tools, including outreach and education, technical assistance, and enforcement. The agency also emphasized systemic enforcement to maximize its impact, filing nearly double the number of

WASHINGTON - Didlake, Inc. a government contractor that provides janitorial and maintenance employees to federal worksites throughout Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleged in a suit filed today.

The EEOC alleged that although Didlake, a not-for-profit corporation, employs a significant number of deaf and hard-of-hearing employees, it failed to provide communications

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today issued a report titled “Timeliness of Merit Final Agency Decisions in the Federal Sector.” A merit final agency decision (FAD) is one means by which the claims raised in an equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint are adjudicated. A merit FAD contains findings of fact and conclusions of law on each claim raised by the complainant, provides the rationale for dismissal of any claims

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) announced today that they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance and maximize the enforcement of federal laws and regulations.

The MOU formalizes and increases coordination between the agencies through information sharing, joint investigations, training, and outreach. The document outlines procedures to be followed by both the EEOC and WHD as they together elevate