8 Types of Workplace Discrimination and Your Rights

The types of workplace discrimination prohibited by federal law fall into eight categories: race, color, national origin, sex (which now includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy), age, disability, religion, and genetic information. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces these protections across hiring, firing, pay, promotions, and day-to-day working conditions.¹ Most of these laws apply to employers with 15 or more employees, though the Age Discrimination in Employment Act starts at 20, and the Equal Pay Act reaches almost every employer regardless of size.²

Harassment and retaliation tied to any of those categories are also illegal, and the enforcement path runs through the EEOC on strict deadlines. Here is what each category covers and how to act on a claim.

The Protected Categories

Race and Color

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars job decisions based on race, and the protection reaches beyond broad categories to cover physical characteristics like hair texture and facial features, cultural traits such as dress and grooming, and even the way someone speaks.³ If an employer penalizes someone based on a perceived racial background, the protection still applies regardless of how that person identifies.

Color discrimination is a separate claim. Two coworkers of the same racial background can face unequal treatment based on lighter or darker skin tone, and Title VII treats complexion-based bias as its own violation.

National Origin

National origin protections cover where you or your family came from, your ethnicity, and your accent. An employer can factor in an accent only when it genuinely gets in the way of doing the job, such as a customer-facing role that depends heavily on spoken English.⁴ Outside that narrow situation, penalizing someone for sounding “foreign” violates federal law, as does refusing a promotion because of someone’s cultural heritage or country of birth.

Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity

Title VII prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” and federal enforcement treats that phrase as covering sexual orientation and gender identity. After the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, firing or refusing to hire someone because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is sex discrimination under federal law.⁵

Pregnancy

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act makes it illegal to treat a worker unfavorably because of pregnancy, childbirth, or any related medical condition, and it reaches every aspect of employment.⁶ The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act goes further by requiring employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy-related limitations. Those can include more frequent breaks, adjusted schedules, temporary reassignment, permission to sit or stand as needed, or telework. An employer cannot force a pregnant worker to take leave when a different accommodation would let her keep working.⁷

Equal Pay

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires that men and women receive equal pay for substantially equal work at the same workplace. The comparison turns on actual job duties, not job titles. Any pay gap between two employees doing essentially the same work under similar conditions must be explained by seniority, merit, or another factor unrelated to sex.⁸ Unlike most other federal anti-discrimination laws, the Equal Pay Act covers virtually all employers regardless of headcount.⁵

Age

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers 40 and older from being treated worse because of their age, across hiring, layoffs, promotions, pay, and benefits.⁹ A supervisor who is also over 40 can still be liable for age discrimination against another older worker; the statute protects you from age-based decisions regardless of who makes them.

The ADEA applies to employers with 20 or more employees, a higher bar than the 15-employee threshold for most other federal discrimination laws.² Pushing someone into early retirement based on age is a textbook trigger for liability.

Disability

The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act protect qualified workers with physical or mental impairments that substantially limit major life activities. “Qualified” means the worker has the skills and experience to handle the core duties of the job.¹⁰ The ADA covers private employers with 15 or more employees; the Rehabilitation Act covers federal agencies and federal contractors.¹¹

Employers must provide reasonable accommodations so a worker with a disability can do the job. That can mean a modified schedule, an ergonomic setup, a screen reader, reassignment to a vacant position, or similar adjustments. The only limit is “undue hardship,” meaning significant difficulty or expense relative to the employer’s size and resources.¹² Mental health conditions carry the same protection as physical ones. When a worker requests an accommodation, the employer is expected to engage in a good-faith back-and-forth to find a workable solution; skipping that conversation and simply saying no is where many employers get into trouble.

Religion

Title VII requires employers to accommodate workers’ religious practices, and the definition of “religion” is broader than most people expect. It covers organized faiths and also nontheistic moral or ethical beliefs held with the same seriousness as traditional religious convictions.¹³ Common accommodations include schedule changes for observances, exceptions to grooming or dress code policies, and excusal from certain job duties that conflict with a worker’s beliefs.

The standard changed significantly in 2023. Courts long applied a low bar that let employers deny religious requests whenever granting them would impose anything more than a trivial cost. In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court rejected that reading and held that an employer must show the accommodation would result in “substantial increased costs” to its business before it qualifies as an undue hardship.¹⁴ Employers can no longer brush off requests with vague references to inconvenience; they need to point to a real financial or operational burden.

Genetic Information

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act bars employers from using genetic information in hiring, firing, promotion, or pay decisions. Genetic information includes your genetic test results, a family member’s test results, and your family medical history.¹⁵ Employers generally cannot request, require, or purchase this information about applicants or employees, with a few narrow exceptions.¹⁶ GINA applies to employers with 15 or more employees.

Harassment as a Form of Discrimination

Harassment can arise from any protected characteristic, not just sex. Offensive comments, slurs, intimidation, or hostile behavior based on race, age, disability, religion, national origin, or genetic information can all violate federal law. The legal line is drawn at conduct severe or pervasive enough that a reasonable person would find the work environment intimidating, hostile, or abusive.¹⁷

A single offhand remark usually will not meet that threshold, but a pattern of demeaning jokes, threats, or physical interference with work almost certainly will. Sexual harassment, including unwelcome advances or requests for sexual favors, falls under this framework. Harassment also becomes automatically illegal when enduring it becomes a condition of keeping your job, such as a supervisor demanding sexual favors in exchange for not firing someone.

Retaliation for Speaking Up

Retaliation is the most frequently alleged basis of discrimination in federal sector cases and shows up constantly in private sector charges.¹⁸ It happens when an employer punishes a worker for exercising their legal rights: filing a discrimination charge, cooperating with an investigation, or pushing back against a practice they reasonably believe is illegal.¹ Punishment can be obvious, like termination, or subtle, like a sudden schedule change or exclusion from meetings.

You are protected even if your original complaint turns out to be wrong. As long as you had a good-faith belief that discrimination was occurring, the employer cannot legally punish you for raising the issue.

How to File a Charge and Meet the Deadlines

Before you can sue an employer for discrimination under most federal statutes, you have to file a charge with the EEOC first. You start by submitting an inquiry through the EEOC’s online public portal. An EEOC staff member then interviews you to decide whether filing a formal charge makes sense. If you proceed, staff prepares the charge and you review and sign it electronically.¹⁹

Timing is critical. You generally have 180 calendar days from the discriminatory act to file. That deadline extends to 300 days if a state or local agency also enforces a discrimination law covering the same conduct.²⁰ Missing the deadline can permanently bar your claim.

Shortly after a charge is filed, the EEOC may offer both sides free, voluntary mediation. Any written agreement reached during mediation is enforceable in court. If mediation fails or either side declines, the charge moves to a standard investigation.²¹ If the EEOC dismisses your charge or decides not to litigate after finding a violation, it issues a right-to-sue notice. You then have 90 days from receiving that notice to file your own lawsuit in federal court.²² That 90-day window is another hard cutoff.

What You Can Recover

Available remedies depend on the statute but generally include back pay, reinstatement or front pay, compensatory damages for emotional harm, and attorney’s fees. For claims under Title VII, the ADA, and GINA, compensatory and punitive damages combined are capped based on employer size:²³

15 to 100 employees: $50,000
101 to 200 employees: $100,000
201 to 500 employees: $200,000
More than 500 employees: $300,000

These caps, set at 42 U.S.C. § 1981a, apply to the combined total of compensatory and punitive damages per complaining party and do not limit back pay, which is calculated separately.²⁴

Age discrimination claims under the ADEA follow a different structure. There are no compensatory or punitive damages, but a worker who proves a willful violation can recover liquidated damages equal to the back pay owed, which effectively doubles the financial recovery.²⁵ Equal Pay Act claims have their own remedies framework, including unpaid wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. State anti-discrimination laws often reach smaller employers and protect additional characteristics, so a claim that looks marginal under federal law may still have traction where you live.

1
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What Laws Does EEOC Enforce
2
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Small Business Requirements
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Section 15 Race and Color Discrimination
4
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. National Origin Discrimination – FAQs
5
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Coverage of Business/Private Employers
6
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnancy Discrimination and Pregnancy-Related Disability Discrimination
7
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Equal Pay Act of 1963
9
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
10
ADA.gov. Guide to Disability Rights Laws
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Employment Rights: Who Has Them and Who Enforces Them
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA
13
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Section 12 Religious Discrimination
14
Supreme Court of the United States. Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023)
15
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Fact Sheet: Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
16
U.S. Department of Labor. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008: GINA
17
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Harassment
18
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Retaliation
19
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination
20
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Frequently Asked Questions
21
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mediation
22
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Can Expect After a Charge Is Filed
23
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Remedies For Employment Discrimination
24
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1981a – Damages in Cases of Intentional Discrimination in Employment
25
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 626 – Recordkeeping, Investigation, and Enforcement