Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Labor & Employment Law Blogs -> New York Public Personnel Law

Labor & Employment Law

: New York Public Personnel Law

Federal law does not permit racial discrimination based upon client's preferences

Federal law does not permit racial discrimination based upon client's preferences Pleener v. NYC Board of Education, ___F.3d___ (2d Cir. Feb. 24, 2009)
Source: Adjunct Law Prof Blog; http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/
Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2009, Mitchell H. Rubinstein, Esq., Adjunct Professor of Law, St. Johns Law School and New York Law School, All rights reserved.

Pleener v NYC Board of Education illustrates an important employment discrimination principle. With respect to racial discrimination, an employer may never make a decision based upon the preferences of his clients. Why? Because race is never a BFOQ. As the court explained:

We agree that federal law does not permit an employer to discriminate based on race toaccommodate the actual or perceived invidious biases of its clientele. See Knight v. Nassau County Civil Serv. Comm?n, 649 F.2d 157, 162 (2d Cir. 1981) (noting that ?Congress specifically excluded race from the list of permissible bona fide occupationalqualifications?); 29 C.F.R. § 1604.2(a)(1)(iii) (providing that bona fide occupationalqualification exception does not generally apply to ?refusal to hire an individual because of the preferences of coworkers, the employer, clients or customers?).

Here, plaintiff, a school principal, failed to establish that he was removed because of his race (white) based upon the preferences of the community.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on April 07, 2009 (boomark / email).