Employment Discrimination

NEW YORK CITY

EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION ATTORNEY

The most common form of discrimination happens in the workplace.   Sexual harassment is a type of discrimination, where the employer is responsible for creating or allowing a “hostile work environment.” There are civil rights laws against discrimination in any facet of employment, it can be discrimination during the hiring and firing process, but it can also happen during the course of your employment.   When you suspect that you are being treated unfairly at work, a call to a New York City Employment Discrimination Attorney will shed light on your rights.

An employer may not discriminate based on the following criteria:

  • Age (Over 40)
  • Gender
  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Skin Color
  • National Origin
  • Mental or Physical Disability
  • Genetic Information
  • Relationship to someone who may be discriminated against
  • Pregnancy or Parenthood

Some examples are:

  • Specifying the above criteria in a job advertisement (Examples: Waitress, Able Bodied, Young Lady, Strong Man, Youthful)
  • Excluding potential employees during the recruitment process (Example: Only men were interviewed for a position, even though many women applied.)
  • Denying some staff compensation or benefits (Example: The younger employees are given all the overtime.)
  • Paying equally-qualified workers, with the same job description and experience, different salaries (Example: The German employees are paid more than the Dutch employees.)
  • Discriminating when assigning disability leave, maternity leave, or retirement options (Example: An older worker is given less disability leave, in the hope they will retire.)
  • Denying or disrupting the use of company facilities (Example: There are not enough restrooms for women and they have to wait in line.)
  • Discrimination when issuing promotions or lay-offs (Example: The French workers are always getting promoted, whereas the British workers are not.)

Sexual Harassment and the Hostile Work Environment

A hostile work environment is an environment that is difficult or uncomfortable for another person to work in due to discrimination.   The most common type is sexual harassment which might include fondling, suggestive remarks, sexually-suggestive photos displayed in the workplace, use of sexual language, or off-color jokes.   If a co-worker makes an offensive joke once, you report it to your employer, the employer speaks to the co-worker and it never happens again – that is NOT harassment or a hostile work environment.  Your employer did that they were supposed to do and succeeded in properly protecting you.  If there is an ongoing pattern of harassment, it’s time to call a New York City Employment Discrimination Attorney.

From Wikipedia:

To be unlawful, the conduct must create a work environment that would be intimidating, hostile, or offensive to a reasonable person. An employer can be held liable for failing to prevent these workplace conditions, unless it can prove that it attempted to prevent the harassment and that the employee failed to take advantage of existing harassment counter-measures or tools provided by the employer.

A hostile work environment may also be created when management acts in a manner designed to make an employee quit in retaliation for some action. For example, if an employee reported safety violations at work, was injured, attempted to join a union, or reported regulatory violations by management, and management’s response was to harass and pressure the employee to quit. Employers have tried to force employees to quit by imposing unwarranted discipline, reducing hours, cutting wages, or transferring the complaining employee to a distant work location.

The United States Supreme Court stated in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.[4] that Title VII is “not a general civility code.” Thus, federal law does not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not extremely serious. Rather, the conduct must be so objectively offensive as to alter the conditions of the individual’s employment. The conditions of employment are altered only if the harassment culminates in a tangible employment action or is sufficiently severe or pervasive.

Please New York City Employment Discrimination Attorney, Wittenstein & Wittenstein at 718-261-8114 if you have been a victim of discrimination.

NEW YORK CITY EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION ATTORNEY

FREE CONSULTATION
NO FEE UNLESS WE WIN

Art Builds Communities

Art does not arrive fully formed. It is built—collectively, physically, in shared space. Before it appears on a street or in a march, it appears in conversation, in planning sessions, in rooms where people cut, paint, argue, revise, and keep going. This process is not secondary to the work. It is the work. Community is strengthened not only by what art represents, but by how it is made. An art build gathers people who might not otherwise meet. It gives them a common task, a shared visual language, and a reason to stay in the room together long enough for trust to form. The result is more than objects. It is continuity. In preparation for [...]

Art as Power

Art is a form of power that operates through images rather than decree. It shapes perception, organizes memory, and gives structure to experiences that resist easy narration. Long before it persuades, art reorients: it trains attention, alters scale, and determines what is allowed to remain visible. My own work begins from this premise. Images are not neutral, and symbols are never incidental. They accumulate meaning through repetition, circulation, and use—through being carried, held, worn, or encountered unexpectedly. Over time, certain forms insist on returning. A flower becomes a sign of refusal rather than ornament. A future date becomes a horizon rather than a prediction. These are not abstractions; they are working tools. Throughout history, images [...]

Executive Order – Jan 6 (Speculative)

SUMMARY January 20, 2029 President Orders Preservation and Public Access to the Historical Record of the January 6 Attack on American Democracy Today, the President signed an Executive Order directing the preservation, organization, and lawful public accessibility of the historical and judicial record related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. The Order affirms that while presidential pardons resolve criminal liability, they do not erase historical facts, judicial findings, or the public record. The initiative is designed to safeguard democratic memory, ensure transparency, and support civic education—without imposing punishment, stigma, or retaliation against any individual. PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJanuary 20, 2029 President Signs Executive Order to Preserve January 6 Historical [...]

Executive Order – East Wing Restoration (Speculative)

SUMMARY January 20, 2029 President Orders Removal of Unauthorized State Ballroom and Restoration of the White House East Wing Today, the President signed an Executive Order directing the complete demolition of the recently completed White House State Ballroom and the reconstruction of the historic East Wing. The order restores essential presidential, public, and security functions eliminated by the East Wing’s demolition and affirms that the White House is a national trust held for institutional continuity—not personal legacy. © 2025 Alyce Wittenstein. All Rights Reserved. Project 2029 and all associated text, structure, and policy formulations are original copyrighted works. No portion may be reproduced, adapted, translated, or distributed without express written permission, except for brief quotations [...]

Executive Order – Kennedy Center (Speculative)

SUMMARY January 20, 2029 Today, the President signed an Executive Order restoring the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to its lawful name, memorial status, and independent governance. The Order voids unauthorized renaming actions taken on December 18, 2025, reaffirms congressional intent, and restores the Center as a national cultural institution held in trust for the American people—not as a vehicle for personal or political legacy. FULL EXECUTIVE ORDER TEXT [PASTE YOUR FULL EO TEXT HERE — unchanged] PRESS RELEASE WASHINGTON — The President today signed an Executive Order restoring the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to its proper legal name, memorial status, and governance structure. The Kennedy Center was [...]

Introducing Project 2029

Project 2029 began as a deliberate shift in how I use imagination. More than thirty-five years ago, I made dystopian films that imagined political and social futures shaped by fear, institutional failure, and concentration of power. At the time, those futures felt exaggerated—useful as warnings, but safely distant from reality. Over time, many of the conditions those films explored stopped feeling speculative and began to feel familiar. That experience changed how I think about storytelling and political imagination. If dystopian futures can move from fiction into lived experience, then imagination is not neutral. It shapes what people expect, accept, and resign themselves to. Project 2029 is a conscious decision to move in the opposite direction—to [...]