DISCRIMINATION 6
refers to the treating of a specific person or group roughlyespecially, with regard to their race, age, or sex. laws are statutes that protect individuals or groups from prejudicialtreatments. Unlawful discrimination is the unfair treatment of anindividual or a group of people based on their distinctivecharacteristics, which may include gender, disability, race, age, anddisability among others.
Humanrights Statistics states that there is more than four percent oflesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) in the Americanworkforce ("Prohibited Practices," 2016). The statisticsshow that approximately four hundred and thirty of these peoplereside in Texas. Despite a large number of LGBT residing in Texas,the city does not have a statute that bans discrimination withregards to sexual orientation LGBT people in Texas experiencediscrimination, unlike other people. Texas Constitution had bannedsame-sex marriage thus, denying lesbians and gays the right tomarry. Despite the fact that there exists a hate crimes law in Texasthat increases penalties for crimes, specifically those motivated bysufferer’s sexual orientation, the law has never been conjured.
Agediscrimination
Agediscrimination entails treating job applicants or employees in a lessfavorable manner due to their age. Despite the lack of statediscrimination laws on gender and sex orientation in Texas, the statehas an age discrimination law that bans ages’ prejudicialtreatments. The Texas Labor Code Chapter 21 prevents employmentdiscrimination against people aged forty years or above. The Code isdependable on the nation’s policy against age inequality referredto as Age in Employment Act (ADEA). Age in Employment Act bill was passed in 1967 and signed into law thesame year by President Lyndon B. Johnson. ADEA was previouslyestablished in 1961, and later established as Chapter 14 of theUnited States Code in 1986 ("Prohibited Practices", 2016).Thereafter, it was rectified in Older Workers Benefit Protection Act,which was later amended in 1991 in Civil Rights Act.
ADEAprevents employment discrimination against individuals aged fortyyears and above, and it affects employees who have twenty or moreemployees. According to the law, the age limit is the age shown to bebona fide occupation qualifications (BFOQs) required to the ordinaryoperation of the specific business. The ADEA also involves the codeof pensions and benefits provided to employees and state therequirement of publicizing information of older workers. Texas hashad a history of litigating age discrimination cases over many years.In fact, many cases have been tried in Texas resulting in closed andpending age discrimination cases.
Genderdiscrimination
Genderdiscrimination was the first to be mentioned in the federal law, in1963 in the Equal Pay Act. The Equal Pay Act addressed genderinequality in the workforce and established equal pay for similarjobs for men and women. Since then, various laws entailing genderdiscrimination have been passed. These rules include the Civil RightsAct, which was enacted in 1964 ("Prohibited Practices",2016) it is the core legislation that protects equal rights of womenin the workforce. Another gender discrimination law is the Title IXof the Education Amendments of 1972 this amendment offered equalrights to women as far as learning and education were concerned. Itguaranteed an equal opportunity for women to learn and receiveeducation like men. The Pregnancy Act of 1978 preventsdiscrimination of women due to pregnancy the law states thatemployees should view women as partial disability and preventemployees from not hiring or firing women on pregnancy grounds.
Anothergender discrimination law is the 1991 Civil Rights Act other thanimproving various protection administered by the 1964 Civil RightsAct, the law included damages and exemplary damages for people ofintentional discrimination. The final gender discrimination law isThe Family and Medical Leave Act, which was established in 1993("Prohibited Practices", 2016). This law improved therights established under the Pregnancy Act. The lawaffects employers with fifty or more employees, and allows up totwelve weeks of uncompensated absence for birth, adoption or under asevere medical condition of a child, parent, or spouse.
Sex
Preventionof LGBT employment differs from state to state. A few states prohibitdiscrimination of people based on their sexual orientation in jobpromotion, compensation, and hiring. Currently, there exists nofederal statute specifically involving employment discrimination onsexual orientation grounds. However, the Equal Employment OpportunityCommission establishes that the Civil Rights Act established in 1964provides equality for LGBT employees ("Prohibited Practices,"2016). In 2015, the EEOC determined that the 1964 Civil Rights Actestablishes sexual orientation inequality is sex discrimination.
Since1999, not a single bill banning discrimination of employees regardingsexual orientation has been passed. All anti-LGBT bills in the Texaslegislature have never proceeded past the committee stage("Prohibited Practices", 2016). Despite the lack ofstate-wide discrimination law in Texas, many cities containordinances banning discrimination of people based on sexualorientation and gender. These laws prevent discrimination,specifically, in housing, private, and city employment, and publicaccommodations. However, there exists no single occasion where theyare enforced.
Conclusion
Thereexists no state-wide discrimination statute in Texas ondiscrimination on sex and gender. However, the state has a definedage discrimination law. Despite the fact that there have been severalbills on discrimination on sex and gender, none has been made intolaw n this case, federal discrimination laws can be enforced.
Reference
ProhibitedPractices.(2016). Eeoc.gov.Retrieved 2 June 2016, from https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/