The Civil Rights Department (CRD) is responsible for enforcing state laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or employee because of a protected characteristic. These characteristics include sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.

Sometimes this treating at work is obvious. Other times it’s harder to spot. In some cases, a person may not even realize they’re behaving in discriminatory ways. But that doesn’t make their behavior okay. 

Fighting it in the workplace starts with knowing how to identify it and understanding your rights.

What Is Workplace Discrimination? 

In general, this kind of behavior against someone means treating that person differently or less favorably than others for any reason. 

In the context of the workplace, it means discriminating against or harassing someone because of their race, color, religion, sex, disability, pregnancy status, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or genetic information. 

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The Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA)

The Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) applies to public and private employers, labor organizations and employment agencies.

These state laws barring discrimination apply to all business practices, including the following:

• Advertisements
• Applications, screening, and interviews
• Hiring, transferring, promoting, terminating, or separating employees
• Working conditions, including compensation
• Participation in a training or apprenticeship program, employee organization or union

What employment discrimination looks like

It is illegal for employers of 5 or more employees to discriminate against job applicants and employees because of a protected category, or retaliate against them because they have asserted their rights under the law.

The FEHA prohibits harassment based on a protected category against an employee, an applicant, an unpaid intern or volunteer, or a contractor. Harassment is prohibited in all workplaces, even those with fewer than five employees.

The California Family Rights Act (CFRA) requires employers of 5 or more employees to provide an eligible employee with job-protected leave to care for a child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling with a serious health condition, and for the employee’s own serious health condition. An eligible employee may also take job-protected leave to bond with a new child by birth, adoption, or foster care placement, within one year of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster placement. “Child” means a biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child of an employee or the employee’s domestic partner, or a person to whom the employee stands in loco parentis. “Parent” includes a biological, foster, or adoptive parent, a parent-in-law, a stepparent, a legal guardian, or other person who stood in loco parentis to the employee when the employee was a child.

Employers of 5 or more employees must provide up to four months of disability leave for an employee who is disabled due to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.

Employers of 5 or more employees are required to provide sexual harassment training to supervisory and nonsupervisory employees, and CRD accepts complaints when a person believes that an employer has not complied with these training and education requirements.

Steps You Can Take to Protect Yourself

• Review Your Employer Procedures: Make sure you look at your employee manual and get a copy. Consider contacting the person or office who may have been designated by your employer to receive such complaints, such as Human Resources.
• Make Sure You Document What is Happening: Write down dates and details of any instances of discrimination and your report of it. Also, note any witnesses, and save all of your own copies of any emails, texts, or any other evidence of misconduct in your personnel files, away from your worksite. During and after a report, it is also important to safeguard and document your productivity at work.
• Consult an Attorney: Beyond reporting this treat to your employer, there is not one right answer about how to proceed. It is wise to consult an attorney who can explain all the available options. Note that there are deadlines for filing a complaint under federal, state, and city laws prohibiting this behavior.

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