YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Your task is to pick a topic from chapter 15 from Walsh, D.J. (2019). Employment Law for Human Resource Practice, and do a legal update for it. Specifically, I want you to look for changes in the law since January 2021 for the 4 areas listed below. For judicial law, focus on the federal district courts and higher. In your submission, indicate the changes that have occurred to law at each level. Be specific, include exact laws, executive orders and/or cases. Be sure to include citations in your submission. I strongly recommend that you use the DOL, EEOC and SHRM websites to help focus your search.

Federal laws - laws that are passed by both houses of Congress that are applicable in all 50 states and US territories.

Executive order - law passed by order of the President. Executive orders on employment matters most often affect federal employees only (which is why we didn't include them in the activity). Many times, executive orders are used as a "motivation" for the passage of federal laws.

Statutory laws - interpretation of federal law developed by federal agencies, like the EEOC. Rules, that have the same power as the law itself, are created through the power the federal government has invested in the agency. This is also known as agency law.

Judicial law - interpretation of federal law by judges, including the Supreme Court. It is impossible for the "letter of the law" to be all inclusive when it is passed by Congress, so courts are used to define and interpret intent. An excellent recent example is the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that gender protection under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes protection for sexual preference and gender identity.

The bad thing about textbooks, especially those in law, is that they are practically out of date as soon as they are published. The Walsh book is no exception. So much has happened in the world of HR law since it was published, and that is what made me create this assignment.