Without an Equal Rights Ordinance, discrimination claims cost thousands and last for years.
Opponents of Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance have a difficult case to make. Pitching discrimination to the most diverse city in the country isn’t easy, which is why they routinely resort to lies, distortions, hyperbole, and fear-mongering.
Opponents of the ordinance argue that most of the groups covered by HERO are already protected by federal laws. Therefore, the logic goes, HERO is unnecessary.
They’re wrong.
The categories included in HERO that do not enjoy full federal discrimination protections are as follows: ethnicity, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, familial status, marital status, military status, and pregnancy. In Houston, you can still be fired for being gay. You can be disqualified from a job for being a veteran. You can be turned away from a business for being pregnant.
But for the sake of argument, let’s examine what happens when someone who is federally protected has her rights violated. Since most federal claims involve race and sex, let’s take the example of Rachel, a very real Guam-born designer who in our scenario has been fictionally fired by her fictional employer for being a woman of color.
Making a Federal Case
Here’s what has to happen under current law:
First, Rachel has to file a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Six months later, the EEOC issues Rachel a “right to sue” letter.
Now it’s time for Rachel to shop for a lawyer. (For our purposes, we’ll assume Rachel hasn’t been unemployed for the six months since she’s been fired. If she had, she likely couldn’t afford a lawyer. End of story. Do not pass go. Bigotry prevails.)
But wait. Attorneys are persnickety about taking employment discrimination cases, since, as we’ll see, they could be living with the case for years. And given the he-said-she-said nature of discrimination claims, the outcome is far from certain. This is why, for example, that of the 88,778 charges made in 2014, only 167 made it to court.
But let’s assume Rachel manages to hire a plucky attorney to represent her. Since Rachel lives in Houston, the attorney files suit in federal court in the Southern District of Texas, where on average civil suits take 21.3 months to wend their way through the system before they go to trial.
So in this best case scenario, from the day Rachel was illegally fired she has had to wait two and a half years for a judge to hear her case.
And let’s say, after all this time, she actually wins! Her employer would likely appeal—and now Rachel has two or three more years of litigation (and thousands more in attorney’s fees) to look forward to.
Making a Municipal Case
Here’s what would happen with the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance in place:
Within six months of her firing, Rachel has to file a complaint with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the city of Houston.
This costs Rachel nothing.
The OIG has one year to investigate Rachel’s claim. It can take statements, review records, conduct interviews, etc. If the employer doesn’t cooperate with the OIG, it can ask the city council to issue subpoenas.
This also costs Rachel nothing.
Assuming the Inspector General concludes that Rachel was illegally fired, HERO then requires the OIG to “affirmatively engage in conciliation of the complaint.” In other words, the OIG will sit Rachel and her employer down to see if the problem can be resolved to their mutual satisfaction. If this process fails to produce results, the city can issue a $500 fine. And while this is not an especially big fine, the employer’s discriminatory practices are now a part of the public record—and reputation matters in business.
This process takes at most a year and a half, and again, costs Rachel precisely nothing.
So yes, some of the groups covered by HERO enjoy federal protections, but availing oneself of those protections requires years of legal headaches and piles of money. The fact of the matter is that HERO is necessary, and even the businesses affected by the ordinance agree. According to Bob Harvey of the Greater Houston Partnership, the business community worked with the city to craft the ordinance so that discrimination claims would be resolved quickly, and that the fines levied would be reasonable.
But in the end, HERO isn’t about numbers. It’s about the kind of Houston we all want to live in.
In the most diverse city in America, everyone should be treated equally under the law.
