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Playing very much against type, a pair of Wall Street Journal op-ed writers suggest fighting fire with fire: enacting a new law to ban discrimination based on the expression of political opinions in the workplace. Read the article here.
Vivek Ramaswamy, executive chairman of Strive Asset Management, and Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld suggest that it may be time to extend the workplace protections afforded by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit adverse employment action based on political expression, just as Title VII currently protects religion. They cite recent examples of viewpoint discrimination in action: the company that forbade employees to wear “Blue Lives Matter,” but permitted “Black Lives Matter” apparel; the flight attendant who, because she opposed abortion on social media, was disciplined under her employer’s sex harassment policy.
Those who value mutually voluntary employment relationships may balk at the idea of giving employees another weapon to wield against their employers. But woke abuse of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies will incur some legal cost sooner or later, and that time may have come.
Stay tuned for a webinar from the Labor & Employment Law Practice Group on this timely and consequential topic, and read the op-ed here.
