Ancestry Discrimination

Ancestry discrimination occurs when you have been treated differently at work based on the country or region where your ancestors are from, whether or not you ever personally lived there. 

For example, it includes discrimination based on the place where your parents or grandparents were born, or based on where your ancestors lived many generations ago.  In any of those instances, your employer should not use your ancestry, or someone else’s ancestry, as the basis to make employment decisions that impact you. 

At Rabner Baumgart Ben-Asher & Nirenberg, our ancestry discrimination lawyers represent employees who have experienced most forms of workplace discrimination, including discrimination due to ancestry.

Both the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”) and the New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”) prohibit discrimination based on ancestry.  As a result, for employees in New Jersey and New York City, discrimination in the workplace based on your ancestry is likely to violate your legal rights.

Some of the ways in which ancestry discrimination can violate the law include:

The LAD and NYCHLR both make it a violation of your legal rights for your employer to use your ancestry as a basis to fire you.  Doing so would be a form of wrongful termination.

Similarly, the law prohibits employers from creating a hostile work environment based on your ancestry, since doing so is a form of discrimination.  This often is referred to as harassment. 

Harassment can involve offensive remarks, jokes and other mistreatment based on a prohibited reason, such as your ancestry, that taken together create a hostile or intimidating work environment.

Further, it is unlawful for your employer to make other decisions, such as ones about hiring, promoting, setting compensation or taking another adverse employment action against you because of your ancestry.

In addition, the LAD and the NYCHRL both protect employees from retaliation because they reported or opposed ancestry discrimination in the workplace.  In other words, your employer would violate the law if it took an adverse employment action against you or harassed you in retaliation for complaining about ancestry discrimination at your job.

Ancestry discrimination claims often are associated with other forms of discrimination, such as national origin discrimination.  For example, if you and your ancestors were born in another country, then discriminating against you because of your heritage is likely to be both national origin and ancestry discrimination.

Likewise, in many instances your ancestry is closely associated with another legally-protected characteristic, such as your race, color or religion.  As a result, it is common for employers that discriminate against you because of your ancestry to also discriminate based on one or more of those other associated traits.

The New Jersey ancestry discrimination attorneys at our employment law firm handle claims of discrimination and harassment based on national origin, race, color and religion.

If you believe you have been the victim of discrimination based on your ancestry or due to another legally-protected category, then please feel free to contact us online or to call us at (201) 777-2250 to schedule an initial consultation with one of our New Jersey ancestry discrimination lawyer. 

Our main office is located at 135 Chestnut Ridge Road, Suite 230, in Montvale, New Jersey.  For your convenience, we offer consultations in person, via Zoom video conference, and over the telephone.  We are dedicated to enforcing the rights of employees in New York and New Jersey.

Want to learn more about your employment law rights?  If so, then we welcome you to visit our New Jersey Employment Lawyer Blog, which provides news and information about your workplace rights.  For example, you may be interested in the following pertinent article:  Decision Based on Family Relationship is Not Ancestry Discrimination.