EEOC releases guidance on religious discrimination

Yesterday the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released new guidance documents intended to help individuals learn more about preventing discrimination based on religion.

The new documents include:

- A new Compliance Manual section regarding workplace discrimination based on religion; check out this example from the section on recruitment, hiring, and promotion:

"Darpak, who practices Buddhism, holds a Ph.D. degree in engineering and applied for a managerial position at the research firm where he has worked for ten years. He was rejected in favor of a non-Buddhist candidate who was less qualified. The company vice president who made the promotion decision advised Darpak that he was not selected because “we decided to go in a different direction.” However, the vice president confided to co-workers at a social function that he did not select Darpak because he thought a Christian manager could make better personal connections with the firm’s clients, many of whom are Christian. The vice president’s statement, combined with the lack of any legitimate non-discriminatory reason for selecting the less qualified candidate, as well as the evidence that Darpak was the best qualified candidate for the position, suggests that the proffered reason was a pretext for discrimination against Darpak because of his religious views."


- A Q&A fact sheet that includes this information about when employers need to accommodate applicants and employees:

"Title VII requires an employer, once on notice that a religious accommodation is needed, to reasonably accommodate an employee whose sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with a work requirement, unless doing so would pose an undue hardship. Under Title VII, the undue hardship defense to providing religious accommodation requires a showing that the proposed accommodation in a particular case poses a more than de minimis cost or burden. Note that this is a lower standard for an employer to meet than undue hardship under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which is defined in that statute as significant difficulty or expense."


- Best practices on eliminating discrimination, including the following:

• "Employers can reduce the risk of discriminatory employment decisions by establishing written objective criteria for evaluating candidates for hire or promotion and applying those criteria consistently to all candidates.
• In conducting job interviews, employers can ensure nondiscriminatory treatment by asking the same questions of all applicants for a particular job or category of job and inquiring about matters directly related to the position in question."

Sounds like an endorsement of structured interviews if I ever saw one!

Grading the EEOC

The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently released a report critical of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) ability to handle its private-sector workload.

Amid the critique are some gems for those of you itching to know more about the EEOC...

* Wondered where the EEOC's offices are? Check out page 18

* Curious how a complaint makes its way through the process? Check out page 20

* Need another workforce planning model? (c'mon, you know you do) Check out page 24

There are lots of other great metrics in here, and I'm sure it's all the buzz at the EEOC.

Supreme Court clarifies ADEA burden shifting

On June 19th the U.S. Supreme Court made several employment-related decisions. Of most interest for us is their decision in Meacham v. Knolls.

The case involved workers over 40 who were suing over their layoffs. They claimed they lost their jobs due to age discrimination, claiming a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Although they claimed both disparate treatment and disparate impact, the important issue here is the latter--employment decisions that may not intentionally discriminate but have that effect.

How the court ruled is closely tied to its 2005 decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, in which they held that adverse impact cases could be brought under the ADEA, but employers could prevail if they could show (per the language of the ADEA) that the employment decision was based on a "reasonable factor other than age" (RFOA).

So what was the decision? The court made it clear that the employer in these cases bears both the burden of production and the burden of persuasion that the employment decisions were based on a RFOA. This is similar to other adverse impact discrimination cases, such as those brought under Title VII, where an employer must show their practice was "job related and consistent with business necessity."

So what does this mean? It doesn't mean a new requirement. It reinforces that all employment decisions--hiring, firing, and everything in between--should be based on logical, non-discriminatory reasons. The fact that the employer may face a slightly easier hurdle in ADEA disparate impact cases compared to, say, race or gender cases, is practically insignificant.

Important note: the plaintiffs in this case provided expert testimony that employee scores on "flexibility" and "criticality" had both the most manager discretion and were tied the strongest to outcomes. Words like these are often invoked in age discrimination cases (a jury can easily see how these types of words might be proxy for "young"), and employers are wise to strongly consider in hiring and firing situations whether the rating factors are tied to benchmarks and can be shown to be important for success on the job.

EEOC informal discussion letters

If you're an HR professional in the U.S., chances are you've been to the EEOC's webpage many times. You may even subscribe to their feed. But do you know about their informal discussion letters?

These memos are written by EEOC legal staff, and while they are not "official opinions" of the Commission, they offer insight into several important issues. Consider some of the recent letter titles:

- Background checks of peace officers and the ADA (certain documents may be evaluated post-offer)

- Title VII and ADEA: Job Advertisements (you can "encourage" certain groups to apply, but "seeking" them is probably not a good idea; "journeyman" probably okay)

- ADA: Disability-Related Inquiries; Hiring (screening people out based on medical information must be shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity)

- Title VII: Use of Conviction Records in Hiring (person convicted for auto-stripping could probably be rightfully denied a tow truck license or job)

- Americans with Disabilities Act: Periodic Testing (questionable whether periodic medical exams of all city bus drivers would be legal)

GINA signed into law...did anybody notice?

It's not often that we have a new federal statute dealing with employment discrimination. So I was a little surprised that the recent passage and signing into law (on May 21) of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) hasn't gotten more press.

Perhaps it's because employers don't see it as a big issue--at least not yet. This is one of the few instances of the law being proactive. Many employers may not see how this relates to them, but consider the details:

- The law prohibits employers (generally as defined under the CRA of 1964) from failing to hire, or terminating, someone because of genetic information. This is what most people think of, and the language is similar to other statutes that prohibit discrimination (e.g., it also includes compensation discrimination).

- The law also prohibits employers from considering genetic test information from family members of the applicant/employee.

- It does NOT prohibit practices that result in an adverse impact based on genetic information. The law does, however, specify that this will be reviewed 6 years from when the law goes into effect, which is November 21, 2009.

- Finally, it prohibits discrimination based on "the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family members of such individual." This may be the least known aspect of the law, similar to the ADA provision that prohibits employers from considering a record or perception of a disability.

Remedies in most situations track those under Title VII, and enforcement of the law will be overseen by the EEOC.

For one of the better summaries, check this out.

B = f (P,E)

One of the most famous axioms in social psychology is what's sometimes called "Lewin's equation" (after the famous psychologist Kurt Lewin): behavior is a function of both the person and the environment. This equation is good to keep in mind when looking at all kinds of human behavior, including recruitment and assessment.

Research presented in the May 2008 issue of Journal of Applied Social Psychology addresses this equation. Let's take a look at it and see if helps us answer an age-old question: What's more important--the observer or what's being observed?

Tell me if this situation sounds familiar. A hiring manager insists on hiring someone based on something they saw in the person's resume (e.g., the candidate graduated from a particular college), even though the person did not do well on a structured, validated assessment. The first study shows that HR is not immune to this phenomenon. In it, HR managers were presented with two types of information about a candidate: preliminary information (like a resume) and performance on an assessment center. The managers were then asked to rate the candidate. Results? Managers were unable to exclude the preliminary information, even though they had better information (the assessment center results) in front of them.

The second article looks at the legitimacy perceptions of promotion decisions and how they relate to information on deservedness (candidate performance) and entitlement (affirmative action). Participants felt that both deservedness and entitlement were related to legitimacy, but there was a gender effect--female participants felt increased resentment when the male candidate was promoted.

The third article is a fascinating take on how people how people perceive discrimination. Specifically, the authors looked at ambiguous situations and the impact of how "prototypical" the person doing the discriminating is. What they found was that the amount of control the perceiver felt they had over discrimination in their lives moderated the influence of the prototype effect. In other words, whether a white male (the prototype) was acting in a discriminatory fashion depended a great deal on the perceiver. Like research on stress, control was found here to have a significant effect on perceptions.

So given these three articles, what's more important--the observer or what's being observed? The research above gives us a clear answer, and one that validates the wisdom of Kurt Lewin: both.

Too fat or too thin? You may not get hired.

Job candidates that are either too fat or too thin may have a more a difficult time getting hired than those in the middle weight ranges according to a study by Swami, et al. reported in the most recent issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Weighting in line
The authors found that when men were asked to rate a variety of female pictures for either a management position or for providing help (N=30 and 28, respectively), they were less likely to hire or help women with body mass indices (BMI) over 30 or under 15. Those with a slender body (BMI = 19-20) were most likely to be hired or helped. This shouldn't be surprising, given that studies have consistently linked physical attributes, including weight, with employment decisions, but it's certainly a reminder to watch your biases when evaluating candidates!

Predict-ability
In another article, Truxillo et al. found a relationship between cognitive ability and the ability to accurately judge one's performance on an employment test. Using a video-based situational judgment test of customer service skills, the authors found that those with high cognitive ability were able to predict their performance while those with low cognitive ability were not. Practical implications? Providing thorough test feedback may be particularly important for candidates lower in cognitive ability as they may be more likely to be surprised (and dismayed) by the results. This means providing information prior to the test as well as afterward (e.g., how it was developed, how it is scored, how you can improve your performance).

Working IT
In a third study, Johnson, et al. found gender and ethnic group differences in how IT careers are perceived as well as in self-efficacy related to IT. Using data from 159 African- and 98 Anglo-Americans, the authors found that African American men reported higher levels of IT self-efficacy than all other groups, whereas Anglo women reported the lowest levels. In addition, Anglos had more negative stereotypes of IT professionals than did African Americans. This study had a small sample size, but the implication is that how people see their own ability related to an occupation, as well as how they perceive those in it, influences their career choices. This will in turn impact your applicant demographics as well as your recruiting success.

The rest
There are some other interesting reads in here, including:

When emotional displays of leaders may increase follower performance

How to give performance feedback

Self-perceptions of ethical behavior

New York City settles discrimination case for $21M

Eliot Spitzer isn't the only one in New York that's paying for mistakes.

New York City has agreed to settle an employment discrimination case that dates back to 1999 for $21 million. This case is particularly interesting given its focus on recruiting practices.

The class action lawsuit was filed by black and Hispanic employees of the Department of Parks and Recreation who complained that the department was illegally discriminating in its promotion and assignment practices.

Specifically:
"The plaintiffs complained that they were bypassed by promotions because of a recruiting program Mr. Stern [the former Parks commissioner] had started to recruit young graduates of elite colleges — nearly all of them white — to fill positions in the agency."

Of the recruiting program, Mr. Stern said:
"The program was to get young college graduates to work long hours at low salaries. The problem was you couldn’t [get] black graduates to work for $22,000 or $25,000, either because they had loans or were offered better jobs by companies that wanted them."

What could the City have done to prevent this situation? Given the actual statistics (the article states 40 of the 179 hired were black or Hispanic), this was likely more about the fairness and perception of the process rather than hiring numbers. A different communication strategy and engagement with current employees likely would have gone a long way toward preventing the complaints.

Note that this lawsuit is separate but related from a one filed in 2002 (that was settled in 2005) which claimed that the department was illegally discriminating by favoring whites for promotion. That suit contended that:

"Time and again...the Parks Department failed to follow any objective guidelines for determining promotions and filling management positions, failed to post notices of job openings, and ‘’rarely, if ever'’ conducted the required interviews for vacancies."

As part of the current settlement agreement, the City agreed to:

"train interviewers to ensure that employees who apply for promotions are treated fairly and objectively; and to examine the process by which managers are selected in the future."

Good lessons for employers everywhere.

The diversity-validity dilemma (+ free articles!!)

The latest issue of Personnel Psychology has some great articles in it and right now they're free! So before you do anything else, get while the gettin's good, because normally each article will run ya $30.

So what's in there? The main attraction is a great series of articles on the "diversity-validity" dilemma, which Pyburn, Ployhart, and Kravitz in their article on the legal context, define as:

"The ability of organizations to simultaneously identify high-quality candidates and establish a diverse work force can be hindered by the fact that many of the more predictive selection procedures negatively influence the pass rates of racioethnic minority group members (non-Whites) and women."

This article is a great short read that goes over the major legal points, including adverse impact and the major court cases.

The next article, by Ployhart and Holtz, is a print-and-save type article (yes it's that good) that summarizes the various strategies employers can use to help resolve the dilemma. The article includes a couple of great tables, including one that summarizes most selection mechanisms with their corresponding criterion-related validity and d-values (pp. 155-156) and another that summarizes the various resolutions to the dilemma (pp. 158-163).

Bottom line from that article? I'll let the authors say it:

"Among the most effective strategies, the only strategy that does not also reduce validity is assessing the full range of KSAOs." (bold added)

Hallelujah. Yes, certain assessment methods tend to work better than others (e.g., structured interviews, job knowledge tests) but the best approach is plain old fashioned good practice: Start with job analysis and use the testing methods that best target the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that rise to the top. It really is pretty simple.

The third article in the series is another fabulous one, this time targeting the role that affirmative action (AA) plays in the dilemma.

In it, Kravitz provides a great overview of the basis of AA, attitudes about AA, and provides some answers to some controversial issues, including:

- Does discrimination still occur? (Answer: you bet)
- What is the economic impact of AA on target groups? (A: it's complicated)
- What is the economic impact of AA on organizations? (A: apparently very little)
- Does AA lead to stigmatization of target group members by others? (A: it can)
- Does AA lead to self-stigmatization of target group members? (A: hard to say)

The article then wraps up with some great practical recommendations, the two most important of which are strong, visible, ongoing support of management and the development of an appropriate culture.

Last but not least, don't miss the other great content in this issue, including Mount et al.'s article, Incremental validity of perceptual speed and accuracy over general mental ability and Taylor et al.'s article The transportability of job information across countries.

Now get out there and get some free content!

January '08 issue of J.A.P.

The January 2008 issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology is out. Unfortunately there are only three articles directly related to recruitment and assessment, but they're pretty good ones, so let's dive in.

First up, a Monte Carlo investigation of the impact of faking on personality tests by Komar, et al. "What is a Monte Carlo investigation?" you may ask. Essentially it's when researchers use computers to simulate data scenarios rather than collecting actual data from participants/subjects/victims. Anyway, the researchers looked at the impact on the criterion-related validity (as measured by supervisory ratings) of conscientiousness scores adjusting for various "faking" scenarios. They found that the validity is impacted by a variety of factors, most notably proportion of fakers, magnitude of faking, and the relationship between faking and performance. Another shot across the bow of self-report personality inventories, methinks, although the debate will no doubt continue!

Next a fascinating study of motherhood bias in both expectations and screening decisions by Heilman and Okimoto. The researchers found a bias against both male and female parents when it came to anticipated job commitment, achievement striving, and dependability, although anticipated competence was uniquely low for mothers and seemed to be the major contributing factor to lowered expectations and screening recommendations. An unfortunate reminder that these factors do matter and something to watch out for. The results are reminiscent of negative behavior toward "pregnant" women found in a previous study.

Finally, Zyphur, Chaturvedi, and Arvey present a discussion of job performance. They address two subjects: the impact of past performance on future performance and individual differences in performance trajectories. Analyzing past literature, the authors note that performance feedback influences future performance directly and different individuals do have different latent performance trajectories, which has big implications for selection. Why? Because many assessment techniques (e.g., T&Es, behavioral interviews) rely on an general assumption that more experience equals better performance. This study adds ammunition to those that argue that assumption has serious flaws (or at least is overly simplistic).

In addition to these three, you may find the following interesting as well:

Challenging conventional wisdom about who quits: Revelations from corporate America. (great stuff for those of you interested in retention)

Effectiveness of error management training: A meta-analysis. (for all you trainers out there)

Effects of task performance, helping, voice, and organizational loyalty on performance appraisal ratings. (for those interested in performance ratings)

Marsalis jazzes up new EEOC PSAs

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as part of its E-RACE Initiative, has produced two new public service announcements with renowned jazz musician Wynton Marsalis focusing on discrimination and equal opportunity. They're short and to the point, and you can see them here.

Links a go-go

A smörgåsbord of good reading for this holiday week, 2007:

More evidence that IQ has a environmental component

Teens creating Internet content in greater numbers

New law increases mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots

Wednesday best day of week to send out recruitment e-mail (hat tip)

How to improve your corporate career website (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV)

Ford, et al. wrap up EEOC lawsuit over written exam

Free ATS! No, really! (Okay, there are several installation steps)

...and last but not least, for those of you doing major shopping this week:

Recruiting at the mall (I've wondered why more orgs don't do this!)

Links a go-go

Good reading for December 14, 2007:

Why your company needs to be on Facebook

Target Corp. to pay $510K for race discrimination in application process

Check out the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's virtual conference

Monster launches website targeting Hispanic applicants

SIOP's December, 2007 newsletter

Is your organization green? Candidates want to know.

Using social networking sites to reach out to entry-level hires

The importance of background checks (white paper)

November '07 Issue of J.A.P.

The November 2007 issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology is full of interesting articles, including several relating to recruiting and assessment. Let's take a look:

First, a field study by Hebl et al. on pregnancy discrimination. Female confederates posed as job applicants or customers at retail stores, sometimes wearing a pregnancy prosthesis. As "pregnant" customers, they received more "benevolent" behavior (e.g., touching and over-friendliness), but as job applicants they received more hostile behavior (e.g., rudeness). The latter effect was particularly noticeable when confederates applied for stereotypically male jobs. This isn't a form of discrimination that gets as much play as others, but may be much more common than we think. My guess is a lot of people associate pregnancy with impending time off and don't focus as much on the competencies these women bring to the job.

Second, a study on faking. But wait, not faking on personality tests, faking during interviews. Levashina and Campion developed an interview faking behavior scale and then tested it with actual interviews. Guess what? Scores on the scale correlated with getting a second interview. (Looks like those classes you took on answering vaguely are going to pay off!) But wait, there's more. The authors also found that behavioral questions were more resistant to faking than situational questions (another reason to use 'em!), and follow-up questions INCREASED faking (another reason NOT to 'use em!). Other goodies in this article: over 90% of undergraduate job candidates fake during employment interviews (I assume that's just this sample), BUT, the percentage that were actually lying, or close to it, was less (28-75%).

Third, Brockner et al. provide research results that underline how important procedural fairness (justice) is. Three empirical studies demonstrated that employees judge organizations as being more responsible for negative outcomes when they experienced low procedural fairness. So when applicants or employees get bad news, they'll blame the organization even more if they feel the process used was unfair. Why do we care? Because perceptions of procedural fairness impact all kinds of things, including recruiting (e.g., how someone reacts to not getting a job) and the likelihood of filing a lawsuit (for, say, discrimination).

Fourth, Lievens, Reeve and Heggestad with a look at the impact of people re-taking cognitive ability tests. Using a sample of 941 candidates for medical school that took an admissions exam with a cognitive component, the authors found that retesting introduced both measurement and predictive bias: the retest scores appeared to be measuring memory rather than g, and predictive validity (of GPA) was eliminated. More evidence that re-testing effects are non-trivial. Pre-publication version here.

Last but definitely not least, one of my favorite topics--web-based recruitment. Allen, Mahto, & Otondo present results from 814 students searching real websites. When controlling for a student's image of the employer, job and organizational information correlated with their intention to pursue employment. When controlling for information search, a student's image of the employer was related to the intention to pursue employment, but familiarity with the employer was not. Finally, attitudes about recruitment source influenced attraction and partially mediated the effects of organizational information. What does all this mean? Don't throw your eggs into one basket--organizational image is important, but so is the specific information you have on your website about your organization and the specific job.

There's a lot of other good stuff in this volume, including articles on the financial impact of specific HRM practices, a meta-analysis of telecommuting impacts, engaging older workers, and daily mood.

EEOC Issues Fact Sheet on Employment Testing

On Monday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a fact sheet on employment testing.

The fact sheet covers, at a high level, various topics including:

- types of tests

- related EEO laws (Title VII, ADA, ADEA) and burden-shifting scenarios

- the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures

- recent related EEOC litigation and settlements

- employer best practices

For those of you familiar with the legal context of employment testing, this isn't new information. But it is a nice quick summary of some of the major points, and could be very useful for someone not as familiar with this area.

For a more thorough treatment, I recommend the U.S. Department of Labor's guide for employers on testing and selection.

Links a go-go for October 1, 2007

Good reading for October 1, 2007

The new affirmative action (about schools, but lessons for employers)

2007 ILG National Conference Highlights

Don't automatically dismiss people that been fired

Court rules EEOC may proceed with discrimination case against L.A. Weight Loss

Visa and using credit scores in the hiring process

Hiring supervisors and leaders (the #1 problem of most organizations, IMHO)

Deloitte demonstrates just how creative recruiting can be

How many names does it take to get to a hire?

Who does The Gap think it is? Monster?

Are individuals liable for employment discrimination?

A common question I hear from supervisors and HR professionals is: "Am I personally liable for employment discrimination when I make a hiring decision?"

This recent article deals with a California Supreme Court decision but covers the answer to this question generally.*


* Short answer: it's rare (except for Section 1981 or 1983 claims** and failing to verify employment eligibility***) but you may be named anyway as a tactic on the part of the plaintiff.



** Which can be particularly nasty since there is no cap on damages and no administrative requirement (like filing with the EEOC). On the other hand it is more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in these cases, and it's only relevant in cases of disparate treatment.



*** Okay, this might be nastier because you could face jail time. Don't forget those I-9s!

The Corporate Leavers Survey

This just in from the Level Playing Field Institute: a new study, sponsored by Korn/Ferry, that finds that corporate unfairness, in the form of "every-day inappropriate behaviors such as stereotyping, public humiliation and promoting based upon personal characteristics" costs U.S. employers $64 billion annually.

This sum, based on survey responses from 1,700 professionals and managers, is an estimate of "the cost of losing and replacing professionals and managers who leave their employers solely due to workplace unfairness. By adding in those for whom unfairness was a major contributor to their decision to leave, the figure is substantially greater."

Examples of the type of behavior they're talking about:

- the Arab telecommunications professional who, upon returning from visiting family in Iraq, is asked by a manager if he participated in any terrorism

- the African-American lawyer who is mistaken THREE TIMES for a different black lawyer by a partner at that firm

- the lesbian professional who is told that the organization offers pet insurance for rats, pigs, and snakes, but does not offer domestic partner benefits

What does this have to do with recruiting? Aside from the obvious (turnover-->need to backfill), check this out:

One of the top four behaviors most likely to prompt someone to quit: being asked to attend extra recruiting or community related events because of one's race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.

Not only that, but 27% of respondents who experience unfairness at work in the last year said this experience "strongly discouraged them" from recommending their employer to other potential applicants.

What can employers do to prevent this? Aside from the tried and true methods (good and regular training for all supervisors, prompt and thorough investigations), the report offers other suggestions, which vary depending on the group (e.g., more/better benefits for gay and lesbian respondents, better managers for people of color).

Definitely some things to ponder.

Summary here

Georgia-Pacific fined by OFCCP for using literacy test

In a display of "See? It's not just the EEOC you need to worry about", the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has fined the Georgia-Pacific Corp. nearly $750,000.

Why? During a "routine audit of the company's hiring practices", the OFCCP discovered that one of Georgia-Pacific's paper mills was giving job applicants a literacy test that resulted in adverse impact against African-American applicants (saw that one coming a mile away). The $749,076 will be distributed to the 399 applicants who applied for a job while the mill was using the test.

The test required applicants to read "bus schedules, product labels, and other "real-life" stimuli." The OFCCP determined that the test was not backed by sufficient evidence of validation for the particular jobs it was being used for.

The company defended itself by saying it promotes heavily from within and wanted workers to be able to move around easily.

A sensible policy, but completely irrelevant in terms of defending the legality of a test. In fact it works against an employer, since (as one of the attorneys points out) you're in effect testing people for higher-level positions, which is a no-no.

Several attorneys are quoted in the article, and they mention the importance of the Uniform Guidelines, which really only apply when a test has adverse impact, as in this case. It does make me wonder what sort of validation evidence G-P collected (if any)...

Note: the article states incorrectly that "all federal contractors" are subject to OFCCP rules. Actually only certain ones are, and details can be found here.

Hat tip.

Big Disability Discrimination Decision for California Employers

On August 23, 2007, the California Supreme Court published an important decision in the case of Green v. State of California. The decision should be reviewed by any employer covered by California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), which like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities.

What'd they say? Rather than muddy the waters, I'll quote directly from the case:

"The FEHA prohibits discrimination against any person with a disability but, like the ADA, provides that the law allows the employer to discharge an employee with a physical disability when that employee is unable to perform the essential duties of the job even with reasonable accommodation. (§ 12940, subd. (a)(1); 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a).) After reviewing the statute's language, legislative intent, and well-settled law, we conclude the FEHA requires employees to prove that they are qualified individuals under the statute just as the federal ADA requires." (pp. 1-2)

"...we conclude that the Legislature has placed the burden on a plaintiff to show that he or she is a qualified individual under the FEHA (i.e., that he or she can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation)." (p. 5)

What does this mean? It means employers covered by FEHA can breathe a little easier, and employees bringing suit under FEHA for a disability claim may have a slightly more uphill battle. The court has now made clear that in these cases it is the plaintiff/employee who has the burden of showing they are "qualified" under FEHA, not the defendant/employer. And if the plaintiff can't satisfy this "prong" of their case, they won't win.

...unless this case is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court...