06-19-2025

The World Tennis Association (WTA) will protect the rankings of female players in the top 750 who want to freeze eggs or embryos. Players who spend more than 10 weeks out of competition can take advantage of this offer. The WTA made this decision at the urging of female players from the WTA’s Player’s Council. For these female athletes, “peak athletic performance coincides with the period of peak fertility,” presenting players with a tough choice between their careers and desire for family. Top female tennis players reacted positively to the news, noting how it will reduce the pressure on players to return to the court too quickly.

06-18-2025

Alisha Strife asked a Texas school district if she could bring her service dog to work. An Army veteran, she needed the dog to manage her PTSD and traumatic brain injury symptoms. She provided supporting documentation from her doctors and an independent assessment from the VA. The school district found these documents inadequate and delayed acting on her request for six months, insisting on an independent medical examination. The district did not approve her accommodation request until she filed a lawsuit. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the delay was unreasonable and may have reflected a lack of good faith in the ADA’s mandated interactive process.

06-17-2025

A.J.T. is a student who suffers from seizures and needs help with everyday tasks. She has fewer seizures in the afternoon. Her school accommodated her by providing instruction primarily in the afternoon and into the evening. Then, A.J.T.’s family moved into a new school district in a new state that denied her parents’ requests for evening instruction. As a result, her school day was shorter than that of her classmates. A.J.T. and her parents sued the school district. The U.S. Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Roberts writing the unanimous opinion, held that ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims based on educational services should be subject to the same standards as apply in other disability discrimination claims.

06-12-2025

Recent data reveals that more Americans are juggling multiple jobs. As of March 2025, over 8.9 million individuals have multiple full- or part-time jobs, higher than it has ever been since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking it. Professor Erin Hatton told the New York Times the “biggest” reason people take more jobs is that they need more money to live. Hardship and economic need force them to “cobble together a variety of subpar jobs.” The COVID-19 pandemic spurred the increase in polyworking. Some employers, desperate to find workers, relaxed their regular rules that employees could not work more than one job.

06-11-2025

In April 2024, the EEOC issued a final rule regarding the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The rule allowed individuals to seek accommodations in connection with choosing or not choosing to have an abortion. Mississippi and Louisiana quickly challenged the rule, seeking a declaratory judgment that neither state was obligated to accommodate an employee’s elective abortion. Judge David Joseph of the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana reviewed the matter and concluded that the EEOC’s abortion related guidance “clearly and unequivocally” exceeded the agency’s authority.

06-10-2025

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the unanimous Supreme Court opinion rejecting an additional Title VII burden of proof (Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services). In the case before the Supreme Court, the District Court and the Sixth Circuit dismissed Marlean Ames’ discrimination case against her employer, the Ohio Dept. of Youth Services, because she failed to show the additional “background circumstances” to meet her prima facie burden. According to the Court, Title VII’s disparate treatment provision “draws no distinction between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs.” The language broadly applies to discrimination against “any individual” because of that individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

06-05-2025

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman posted on X (formerly Twitter), “If a founder brags about having ‘a balanced life,’ I assume they’re not serious about winning.” In a guest lecture at Stanford University, Hoffman said to forget about work-life balance if you want to build something great. He said, “I actually think founders have no balance.” Great founders put everything into what they are creating. Hoffman believes that to achieve real success, you must be obsessed with your business outcomes. This philosophy is based on the real challenges of building a new business and the many ways it could fail. He considers it a relentless, unforgiving game.

06-04-2025

The EEOC partially funds state and local civil rights agencies so that they may process and investigate discrimination claims under work-sharing agreements between these agencies. In mid-May, the agency sent a memo to these state and local agencies. The memo stated that the EEOC will stop paying for discrimination claims involving transgender workers or claims based on disparate impact. According to the New York Times, the new policy is retroactive to January 20, 2025. Legal experts told the NYT that they anticipate court challenges to the policy.

06-03-2025

Tracey Franklin, Moderna’s Chief People and Digital Technology Officer, publicly shared how she likes to use AI. Franklin told the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit audience that she views AI as a coach, therapist, and teammate and uses it “all the time.” She created profiles of her executive committee and uploaded the profiles to an AI model. With that information, she fed it scenarios of possible conflicts and circumstances when she needs to give an opinion. She then asked AI to anticipate how her staff might respond. AI provided her with different perspectives on why people have conflicts and how she can best coach them through it.