As much of the country wound down from Thanksgiving celebrations with friends, families and everything in between last month, football programs around the country were also recuperating from one of the most anticipated weekends of the season – the historic rivalry weekend which occurs just in time for the Thanksgiving tryptophan to wear off. As an added bonus, it also happened to be that time of year for many college programs when the afternoon football game is followed quickly by a basketball game in the evening. It is, for some sports fans, the “most wonderful time of the year” ...

In its Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia ruling in June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition on “sex” discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 encompasses discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The Bostock ruling raised, but did not decide, the question of whether or not other federal sex discrimination laws, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Fair Housing Act, might also inherently prohibit LGBTQ+ discrimination. While the Bostock ruling applies only to Title VII ...

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed course and sent a case that it had previously accepted for review, Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., back to the lower appellate court. The case involves the question of whether a Virginia high school must, under the anti-sex discrimination provisions of Title IX, grant a trans-male student bathroom access based on his gender identity rather than his anatomy. When the case was accepted for review by the Supreme Court, one of the legal questions up for review was whether a 2016 U.S. Department of Education (DOE) guidance document ...

The National Labor Relations Board has been busy this holiday season. In the last few weeks, the Board has pushed ahead with its quickie election rules and changed the analysis it uses to determine whether to assert jurisdiction over faculty at religious institutions of higher education, and whether faculty members are managerial employees with a protected right to unionize. In addition, the Board ruled earlier this month that employers must generally permit employees to use company email systems for a variety of protected labor law activity, including union organizing. Then ...

Adjunct faculty members at the University of St. Thomas Monday voted overwhelmingly against union representation by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 284. Gray Plant Mooty's Labor Law and Higher Education Practice Teams served as labor counsel to St. Thomas in the union representation process. Since the union filed its petition for an election on May 23, GPM has been working intensively with the General Counsels office at St. Thomas to advise on the labor law, handling matters before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), assisting the university's ...

While union membership has declined precipitously over the last few decades, union activity is now popping up in many new sectors.  From 1983 to 2013, according to the Department of Labor, union membership dropped from over 20% of the U.S. workforce to a little more than 11%. The public sector, particularly in the areas of education and protective services, still has the highest unionization rate.  In the private sector, the areas of utilities, transportation, and telecommunications represent the highest rates of unionization.

In recent years and months, however, we've seen a growth ...

Confidentiality clauses are a standard provision in most agreements settling an employment dispute. Last week, a former preparatory school administrator learned the hard way that these provisions matter to employers and that violating a confidentiality clause can be costly.

An appeals court in Florida ruled last week that a Facebook post made by the former school administrators daughter violated the confidentiality clause in his settlement agreement with his old employer. As a result, the former administrator forfeited $80,000 of his settlement. 

The former ...

Well, the stakes for companies using unpaid interns have just gotten higher.  Last Wednesday, an intern filed a wage and hour claim against Charlie Rose and ...