IN THE NEWS: SUPREME COURT STRENGTHENS ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAWS

Here’s a link to a May 28th Los Angeles Times article on recent Supreme Court decisions, which strengthen anti-discrimination laws. An excerpt from the article, by David G. Savage, reads:

In a pair of decisions, the court concluded that claims of retaliation were covered by long-standing civil rights laws, even though this kind of discrimination was not mentioned specifically in the statutes. The expansion of employee rights stands in contrast to a series of pro-business rulings by the high court last year that limited the rights of workers.

In the first decision, the court said the nation's oldest civil rights law, passed just after the Civil War, not only gave blacks the same rights as whites to make contracts, but it protected them from being fired for voicing complaints about the mistreatment of other black employees.

In the second decision, the court said older federal employees who were punished after complaining of age bias could sue the government for retaliation. Government lawyers had argued that these workers were protected by the civil service system and had no right to sue.

Check out the full article at: (cut and paste the link)

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-scotus28-2008may28,0,2113090.story