Contesting Workplace Discrimination in Court - American Bar ...

TYPES OF DISCRIMINATIONAbout40 percent ofcases involve arace claim,while 37 percentof all cases involvea sex claim.Federal law prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of various employee characteristics, including race, sex, nationalorigin, religion, age and disability. It also bans discrimination because of pregnancy and against those taking authorized familyleave. As depicted in Figure 2.2, race and sex claims are the most common types of EDL cases. About 40 percent of cases involvea race claim, while 37 percent of all cases involve a sex claim. Claims based on age and disability are the next most common,making up about 22 and 20 percent, respectively, of all EDL cases. A third tier of claims involve discrimination because ofnational origin, accounting for about 12 percent of all cases. The remaining types of discrimination, because of religion(four percent), pregnancy (four percent), and family leave (three percent) are considerably more rare.figure 2.2 :percent of casesby discrimination type *(n=1788)*Percentages add to >100% due to multiple claims in a single case.-4-