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Race and National Origin Discrimination Lawyer

Passed over, disciplined harder, or pushed out?

You keep getting passed over. The promotion went to someone with less experience. Your write-up came for something a coworker does every week without a word said. Or the comments started — about your accent, your name, your hair, where your family is from — and nobody in charge treated it as a problem.

Maybe it was one loud incident. More often it’s an accumulation — hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there, obvious to you.

California law protects you from being treated worse at work because of your race, color, ancestry, or where your family comes from. Ortiz Law Office represents employees. We never represent employers.

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What the law actually protects

California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act — FEHA, the state’s main anti-discrimination law — makes it illegal to fire, demote, refuse to promote, underpay, or harass you because of race, color, ancestry, or national origin.

Those four overlap, and you don’t have to sort them out to have a claim. Race and color aren’t the same thing — colorism, including within a racial group, is its own problem. National origin covers where your family came from and things tied to it: your name, your language, your accent.

Three protections deserve their own mention, because most people don’t know they exist.

Your accent and your language. An employer generally can’t refuse to hire or promote you over an accent unless it actually interferes with the job. And a blanket “English only” rule is not automatically lawful here. An employer generally has to justify it as a real business necessity, apply it only where that necessity exists, and give notice. A rule covering breaks is on thin ice.

Your hair. California was the first state to make clear that “race” includes traits historically associated with race — hair texture and protective hairstyles like braids, locs, and twists. A grooming policy banning those styles, or a manager who calls your hair “unprofessional,” can be race discrimination even if the policy never mentions race. Far too few people know this.

Immigration status. California’s workplace protections don’t turn on your immigration status. As a general matter, state employment law protects people who work here regardless of status, and threats about status — reporting you, questioning your papers after years on the job, using it to keep you quiet — are their own kind of misconduct. If that’s part of your situation, please say so when you call. It changes what we look at, not whether you’re protected.

Signs this may be happening to you

• The promotion, the good route, or the better shift went to someone with less experience — again.
• You were written up, suspended, or fired for something coworkers of a different race do openly without consequence.
• Your work is checked, timed, or second-guessed in a way nobody else’s is.
• Slurs, “jokes,” mocking accents, or comments about your name, food, or family — and when you raised it, you were told to lighten up.
• You were told to speak only English, including on breaks.
• Someone called your hair unprofessional, or told you to change it, straighten it, or cover it.
• You were asked repeatedly where you’re “really” from, or about your papers, long after you were hired.
• You complained, and then the write-ups started. See retaliation for speaking up.

What you’d have to show

1. You’re in a protected group — race, color, ancestry, or national origin. Everyone is; the law protects all races.

2. Something happened that hurt your job. Firing, demotion, a denied promotion, a pay decision, a forced transfer, a suspension, losing assignments. Harassment claims work differently: what matters is whether the conduct was severe, or happened often enough to change the conditions you work under. A single serious incident can be enough.

3. You were doing the job. Well enough that the employer’s explanation doesn’t account for what happened.

4. Race or national origin was a substantial reason — not the only one. Almost nobody writes down a discriminatory motive, so these cases are built from circumstances: who else was treated how, what was said, and whether the company’s story holds together.

For ongoing mistreatment rather than a single decision, see hostile work environment.

What the company will probably say

“It was performance.” Then the comparison does the work. Were coworkers of a different race disciplined for the same thing? Was the rule you broke ever enforced on anyone else? Did your reviews turn bad only after a new supervisor arrived?

“The person we promoted was more qualified.” Worth testing. Were the criteria written down before or after the decision? Did they change to fit the person chosen? Was the job even posted?

“Those were jokes.” Intent isn’t the test for whether conduct was harassing. What was said, how often, by whom, and what management did after learning about it are the questions. One comment is rarely all there is once the whole timeline is laid out.

“Our English-only rule applies to everyone.” A rule applying to everyone can still be unlawful if it falls on one group and the employer can’t justify it. Same for a “neutral” grooming policy that happens to ban protective hairstyles.

What you may be able to recover

Every case is different, and no lawyer can tell you what yours is worth. Depending on the claims, these cases can involve the pay and benefits you lost, money for the emotional harm, and punitive damages, which require proof that the employer acted with malice, oppression, or fraud. A successful employee may also recover attorney’s fees. There may be a separate claim if your employer failed to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

Deadlines

The time limits are strict — one for filing with the state agency, another for going to court, and different ones again for a federal claim. Missing one can end a strong case. They vary with which law applies and what happened, and if the mistreatment is ongoing rather than a single event, how the clock is counted gets complicated. Have your deadline confirmed early.

What to do now

1. Write the timeline down while it’s fresh. Dates, exact words where you have them, who was present.
2. Write down the comparisons. Who did the same thing and wasn’t disciplined. Who got the promotion. This is often the most valuable thing you can produce.
3. Keep copies of your own records — reviews, schedules, texts, emails, the handbook, the grooming or language policy. Don’t take anything you aren’t entitled to have.
4. Report it in writing if you safely can. A short factual email is far easier to prove later than a hallway conversation.
5. Don’t sign a severance agreement or release yet — have it looked at first (severance review) — and talk to a lawyer before your deadline runs. There’s no charge to ask.

Talk to us

If you’re being treated worse at work because of your race, your accent, your hair, or where you’re from, a conversation costs nothing. We can also speak with you in Arabic or Farsi. Consultations are free and confidential. If we take your case, you don’t pay us unless we recover money for you.

Ortiz Law Office, Inc.
1431 Ocean Ave. Ste. 900, Santa Monica, CA 90401
888-376-7849
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