That’s any discrimination, in other words an adverse employment action or harassment that’s directed at someone because of their race. Sometimes that can be the color of their skin or it could be possessing other physical traits associated with a particular race of people, whether it be African American or Eastern or American Indian, there are a number of different racial divisions, including Caucasian. If you possess some racial characteristics and you believe it is your race that is the reason that you’ve been fired or you’ve been demoted or you weren’t hired, or some other adverse employment action befell you, then you might have a racial discrimination claim.
What protections do I have from racial discrimination? Actually, in the United States there are a couple of different avenues you can go. One is protections under title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That particular statute provides for back pay and front pay, compensatory damages, and your attorney’s fees if you can recover. You can also proceed under various state law prohibitions against racial discrimination. In Tennessee, for example, we have the Tennessee Human Rights Act, which has the similar protections to title seven, but in addition to those elements I mentioned before, there’s also no limit on those damages under the Tennessee Human Rights Act, and you can also get punitive damages under the Tennessee Human Rights Act.
*This is a transcript of the Facebook Live video from 7-26-18 Click here to watch the video.