Discrimination in the Workplace

Why does discrimination occur at workplace? There are multiple explanation for the issue. It can be ranged from generational differences, lack of diversity training, absence of good behavior modeling, and many other reasons. In every workplace, it is consists of different cultural, religious, and social backgrounds. There are different perspectives and conversations that take place at the workplace. An individual’s aspect on race, culture, sexual orientations, gender, and political views is disparate among other people. When contrary perspective arises, it can easily result discrimination. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there was approximately 99.412 discrimination cases recorded in 2012.

A well-known fashion company, Alexander McQueen was charged with a racial discrimination lawsuit. Former employee, Moselle Blanco claimed that her supervisor, Max Cantey was verbally abusing her throughout her employment years. Blanco stated that Cantey had called her offensive names and made unnecessary comments. For instance, Blanco was called racist names such as “Burrito face”, “Goya Princess”, and “taco smoke” at her workplace. Then she was accused of being drunk and blowing cocaine while she was on duty. Blanco also mention Cantey stated “she had greasy hands like a Mexican and that he did not want any product to get messy”. Blanco had worked at company for over 10 years till she was fired on September 2012. Blanco was dismissed because she failed to return a dress that was loaned to her client, Jessica Seinfeld and she was also selling to clients while she was off from work.

The offensive name calling and unnecessary remarks is absolutely inappropriate to occur at the workplace. It should not happen in ...

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...f racial harassment. However, it turned out that it was the co-worker and not a supervisor who was involved with the harassment. The term supervisor had to be differentiate correctly. According to the court ruling, an employee is only to be considered a supervisor when he or she is instructed by his or her employer to take “tangible employment actions” towards another individual. In this case, there was a great burden to find evidence for the plaintiff's employer to be found guilty.

Unfortunately, gender and racial discrimination still take place in today's society. There are Federal Laws, State Laws, Municipal Laws and company policies to prohibit the discriminatory practices, but it still doesn't resolved the problem. Discrimination in workplace is mainly influenced by the financial pressure, generational difference, lack of diversity training, and the economy.