Recently in Employment Discrimination Category

A jury awarded Chicago cop Detlef Sommerfield $30,000 in a Chicago police officer discrimination lawsuit.

Detlef Sommerfield moved to Chicago from Germany in 1982 and was able to work his way up and become a Chicago police officer. While his job involved upholding the law and maintaining the peace, Sommerfield found himself victim to illegal action within the police department, reports the Chicago Tribune.

A Capital Grille discrimination charge is expected to be filed in federal court in Chicago this week. According to the lawsuit, the high-end restaurant relegated its minority workers to back-of-house positions, while white workers had prominent, more lucrative front-of-house positions.

Basically, the restaurant is accused of having customers deal only with white staff in positions like waiters and bartenders, while minority workers were out of sight washing dishes and preparing food, reports Reuters.

For the second year in a row, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says it received a record number of employment discrimination complaints. Whether this is good news or bad news depends on how you want to view it -- either more people are victims of discrimination, or more people are stepping up and enforcing their right to a non-discriminatory workplace.

In the Pepsi race discrimination lawsuit, the beverage company is accused of instituting a nationwide criminal background check policy that was so broad that it negatively affected black employees.

Rather than choosing to fight out the case in federal court, Pepsi agreed to pay $3.13 million to affected applicants, announced the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

More candidates have been announced for the Bears GM hire, and the Rooney Rule will be satisfied as two of the four candidates are black.

With the departure of Jerry Angelo, the Bears announced they are going to interview Phil Emery (Chiefs college scouting director), Jason Licht (Patriots director of pro personnel), Jimmy Raye III (Chargers director of player personnel), and Marc Ross (Giants college scouting director) for the position, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell when an employer is discriminating against someone for age, even when mostly older workers suffer. This is especially true in this down economy when employers look to save money and slash payroll costs.

That’s because older workers tend to earn more, so when budgets are slashed, they’re often the first to be let go. The Chicago Board of Education is now dealing with a similar situation as two teachers on the verge of completing their 20th year in the school system have sued bringing an age discrimination lawsuit. In their defense, the Board of Education may can claim the terminations were for legitimate reasons like cost-savings or performance.

In a Diocese of Joliet lawsuit, Roxann Berkes says that she was fired from a teaching job at a Roman Catholic school because of her age.

Berkes, who is 55-years-old, says that she has worked at the St. Paul the Apostle School in Joliet for approximately 30 years and received mostly positive performance reviews until she was “suddenly criticized” for her work in the last school year, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. As a result, she did not have her teaching contract renewed.

If you believe that you have been discriminated at work because of your race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information, you may want to sue your employer.

However, before you can file a federal discrimination lawsuit, you will first have to know about filing a complaint with the EEOC. That’s because the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) usually has first crack at resolving your complaint, and you will need to complain to them first before bringing a private lawsuit.

In the Stroger Hospital lawsuit, a jury ordered the Cook County hospital to pay $7.6 million to a former physician for retaliation and discrimination.

Dr. Vivian Renta successfully argued that she was fired from her job as senior attending physician in the county's pathology department for complaining about the high error rate at the hospital and the hospital's efforts to conceal errors, reports the Chicago Tribune. The hospital had defended the termination saying that the 59-year-old physician was fired because she was the one who made too many mistakes.

In an interesting Comcast discrimination lawsuit, a group of African-American employees are suing the media company for race discrimination. One of their charges against Comcast is that the company's discrimination against black customers contributed to a hostile work environment against black employees as well.

At Comcast's South Side facility, ten current employees and one former employee are seeking class action status to sue the company, reports the Chicago Tribune. The plaintiffs work as technicians and allege race discrimination and hostile work environment.