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EEOC Updates Guidelines On National Origin

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued an update of guidelines for protection of employees based on their national origin. This information is available on the EEOC’s website.

The updated material includes the following items:

  • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to employers with 15 or more full or part time employees. It also covers employment agencies, the federal government, state and local government employers, and unions. The word employer is used in this document to refer to all of these covered entities.
  • Title VII protects all applicants and employees in the United States from discrimination based on their national origin, regardless of their place of birth, authorization to work, citizenship, or immigration status.
  • An individual’s place of origin may be a country (such as Mexico), a former country (such as Yugoslavia), or a place that is closely associated with an ethnic group but is not a country (such as Kurdistan).
  • A national origin group is a group of people who share a common language, culture, ancestry, and/or other social characteristics (such as Hispanics/Latinos or Arabs).
  • National origin does not refer to citizenship or immigration status.
  • Protection from discrimination can even apply to people born in the United States.