The Wide Angle

Volume 2, Issue 2 February/March 1997

Job Discrimination: How to Fight, How to Win

A Review by Marty Lipton

Picture this: you’ve been working for the same company for ten years. You can run your department so when the job of supervisor opens up you assume you’ll get it. Instead, someone younger or thinner or a different religion gets that job. Is it discrimination? If it is, can you do anything about it? How do you start legal proceedings and what can you expect from the process? Can you win?

A good first step is a consultation with a qualified lawyer, but even before that you may want to buy or borrow a copy of Jeffrey Bernbach’s book, Job Discrimination; How to Fight, How to Win. In fewer than 200 pages, Bernbach identifies the most common forms of discrimination in the workplace, explains the nuts and bolts of filing a suit, discusses the fears and misconceptions that often keep people from pursuing cases and then outlines what to expect from the trial and settlement processes.

There’s no fine print or legal jargon here. Every chapter is clearly written, easy for the average person to understand and illustrated with case studies from Bernbach’s employment discrimination practice and current cases from around the country. Weight-related discrimination is included in the chapter on disabilities along with a discussion of the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act that protects some fat people even if we are not disabled. Although the ADA does protect people with actual disabilities, notes Bernbach, it "also protects persons who do not have a disability, never had one, or have a disability that does not substantially limit a major life activity but who, nevertheless, are perceived by an employer as having a limiting impairment." In other words, if the boss thinks your fatness keeps you from doing your job but you can prove otherwise, you are protected just as you would be if an employer refused to make your workplace accessible for a true disability.

Of course, in any discrimination case, it is up to you, the plaintiff, to prove that your case is valid. Bernbach outlines the process for doing this and for filing suit. Although most of us would leave the actual work to a lawyer, it’s still helpful to know what’s going on and what to expect along the way. Lawsuits are stressful; an insight into the system and your part in it can relieve much of the anxiety. Being able to communicate with your attorney is important, too, and this book can give you the basic information so you can ask the right questions and understand the answers.

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