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discrimination
'Just Cause' Is a Worthy Cause
Activists in Ithaca, New York are mobilizing for the first city-wide ban on arbitrary firings in the US. Other cities should take note.
Nov 22, 2025
Activists in Ithaca, New York are trying something unique: They’re mobilizing support for an ordinance that would prohibit employers in that small city from firing their employees without just cause. If they succeed, they’ll have enacted the first such city-wide ban on arbitrary firings in the country.
Success in this effort will be a big deal, because in the United States, employment—unless otherwise restricted by law, collective bargaining agreement, or individual employment contract—is considered to be “at will.” This means that in the vast majority of cases, employers are entitled to fire workers at their whim, without warning or explanation.
A 2021 report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) tells us that about half of US workers have been affected by unfair or arbitrary firings at some point in their lives, with devastating consequences for them and their families. Not surprisingly, then, a nationwide survey cited in the report found wide public support for just cause protections, including from 71% of voters in battleground states, with both Democratic and Republican majorities weighing in favorably.
Existing Restrictions on Employers' Right to Fire
Even without new federal, state, or local legislation, employers today face some limits to the at-will doctrine: federal and state laws, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, that bar various sorts of discrimination in the workplace; anti-retaliation statutes, like those included in the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and many other whistleblower-protection statutes; and section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, that prohibits firing for union or other "concerted" activity. All these laws fall short of robustly protecting workers from retaliatory or discriminatory firings, however, largely because the burden is on the employee to prove the employer's illegal motivation—no simple feat—when under the general at-will rule the employer can fire the worker for no reason at all.
In addition to these limited statutory constraints on the at-will doctrine, over the past 50 or so years a number of state common law exceptions to the rule have developed. The most prevalent is the "public policy" exception, under which, in theory at least, employers can't fire workers for reasons that are contrary to public policy. Courts generally interpret the exception narrowly, applying it only to employees who exercise a clear legal right, perform a clear legal duty, or refuse to violate the law, or when the employer engaged in an “outrageous violation of a well-established public policy.”
Well-crafted state and local laws and ordinances, with accessible and effective enforcement mechanisms, have the potential to empower workers in new and game-changing ways, especially as federal protections erode before our eyes.
A second exception is the "implied contract of continuing employment" (at least theoretically available in 41 states and the District of Columbia). It's derived from employee handbooks, policies, and the like, that suggest protection from discharge except if the employee performs poorly, violates company policies, or has to be laid off because of the employer's economic necessity. Employers can generally get around this claim by expressly stating in their materials that the employee is working on an at-will basis, and that its various policies can be revised at any time, at the discretion of the employer.
Lastly, 11 states have read into the common law an "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing," imposed on employers and employees, to act fairly. While theoretically this should prohibit firings without cause altogether, in actuality courts rarely find it applies, and then only in the most abusive cases. In other words, none of these common law carve outs from at-will employment have been particularly helpful to workers.
The Ithaca Ordinance
Which brings us to Ithaca’s legislative proposal. As the core provision of its current draft version (embedded at the Ithaca Just Cause website), the ordinance would prohibit discharge of an employee who has completed their (maximum 90-day) probationary period, for any reason other than just cause or a bona fide economic reason. In considering whether the just cause standard has been satisfied, the fact finder is to consider, among other things, whether the employer trained the worker on its performance requirements and bases for discipline, and whether the employer’s policy, rule, practice, or performance standard, including its use of progressive discipline, was reasonable and applied consistently.
Also, except in cases of egregious misconduct, the employer has to specifically notify the worker of what rules they violated or requirements they fell short of, and must utilize progressive discipline prior to firing. Similar notice of reasons is required before discharging a worker on account of bona fide economic necessity. Significantly, if an employee termination is to be upheld, the burden is on the employer to satisfy these requirements by a preponderance of the evidence.
The proposed legislation also adds a "Worker Rights" section to the City of Ithaca Municipal Code, and establishes a commission that would adjudicate complaints of violation. Complaints of violation can also be filed in court.
Retaliation against workers who exercise any of the rights granted by the legislation is expressly prohibited, and use of electronic surveillance as a tool for determining employee performance is restricted. Remedies for employees vary depending on the violation, and include back pay and damages, rescission of discipline and reinstatement, penalties, severance pay, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees.
Other Just Cause Efforts
The proposed ordinance echoes the recommendations laid out in these NELP and Roosevelt Institute reports. Published in 2021, both make the case for why this kind of municipal ordinance, or more potently, a comparable state law (or, as an even more radical aspiration, federal legislation, as promoted by Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders) is justified and overdue for all workers—with NELP focusing particularly on the disproportionate impact of at-will employment on people of color and immigrant workers, who face higher rates of wage theft, discrimination, and retaliation for asserting their rights than the employee population at large.
It should come as no surprise, but it's still shameful, that this country lags far behind many other nations—Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and most of the European Union, to name a few—in providing just-cause protections against arbitrary and unfair firings. Which is why what the Ithaca coalition is doing is really worth noticing. But it's not the first city to take this on: Philadelphia led the (notably small) pack when, in 2019, its city council enacted a just cause termination ordinance for the city's approximately 1,000 parking lot attendants. New York City was next, enacting a comparable ordinance protecting its fast food workers in 2021. Also in New York City, a diverse coalition of unions, advocacy organizations, and high road employers are pressing for passage of a Secure Jobs Act covering all employees who work in the city. With its newly elected democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani, it just might succeed.
The US territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have just cause laws. In Illinois, a Secure Jobs Act, pressed by Raise the Floor Alliance and a broad array of allies, was introduced in the state legislature in 2021, but has yet to be enacted. In what might come as a surprise, Montana is the only state in the US to have enacted just cause legislation, and it's been on the books for decades. While not nearly as progressive as the Ithaca, New York City, and Illinois models, it is unique in prohibiting, state-wide, firings without good cause.
Will Just Cause Laws Hamper Unionization Efforts?
Some may be concerned that just cause legislation could undercut unions' ability to successfully organize, since that's a key benefit they can provide in collective bargaining agreements. But there are a number of arguments that cut the other way—including that if firing without good cause is made illegal and is readily enforceable, it creates a more effective impediment to employers' efforts to get rid of pro-union activists than the weak and slow remedies the National Labor Relations Act has to offer. And, just cause for all workers would provide a floor, not a ceiling, for union negotiations for even better protections against improper firings at unionized workplaces.
Parting Thoughts
Worker rights advocates should watch Ithaca Just Cause's initiative with keen interest. It also should give food for thought—and inspiration—for those of us who live in other cities and states. It’s clear that just cause protections are popular with workers across party lines. Well-crafted state and local laws and ordinances, with accessible and effective enforcement mechanisms, have the potential to empower workers in new and game-changing ways, especially as federal protections erode before our eyes. For those of us in locales where this might be possible, maybe it's time to give it a try.
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Warren Calls for Probe as Whistleblowers Accuse Trump Appointees of 'Systematically Destroying' Fair Housing Act
Warren says new whistleblower reports "show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law."
Sep 22, 2025
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling for an investigation into the Department of Housing and Urban Development after several whistleblowers reported that Trump appointees have gutted enforcement of the decades-old law banning housing discrimination.
A New York Times report published Monday, quotes "half a dozen current and former employees of HUD’s fair housing office" who "said that the Trump political appointees had made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs" enforcing the 1968 Fair Housing Act "which involve investigating and prosecuting landlords, real estate agents, lenders and others who discriminate based on race, religion, gender, family status or disability."
In a video posted to social media, Warren (D-Mass.) explained that “if you’re a mom protecting her kids from living with an abusive father or if you’re getting denied a mortgage because of the color of your skin, you have civil rights protection under US law. But the Trump administration has been systematically destroying these federal protections for renters and homeowners.”
According to the Times, when President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk, launched its crusade to dismantle large parts of the federal government at the start of Trump's second term earlier this year, the Office of Fair Housing (OFH) had its staff cut by 65% through layoffs and reassignments, with the number of employees dropping from 31 to 11. Just six of the remaining staff now work on fair housing cases.
The number of discrimination charges pursued by the office has plummeted since Trump took office. In most years, it has 35. During Trump's second term, the office has pursued just four. Meanwhile, it's obtained just $200,000 total in legal settlements after previously obtaining anywhere from $4 million to $8 million per year.
Emails and memos obtained by the Times show a pattern of Trump appointees obstructing investigations:
In one email, a Trump appointee... described decades of housing discrimination cases as “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary.”
In another, a career supervisor in the department’s [OFH] objected to lawyers being reassigned to other offices; the supervisor was fired six days later for insubordination.
In a third, the office’s director of enforcement warned that Trump appointees were using gag orders and intimidation to block discrimination cases from moving forward. The urgent message was sent to a US senator, who is referring it to the department’s acting inspector general for investigation.
Several lawyers said they have been restricted from using past cases in enforcement and communicating with certain clients without approval from Trump's appointees.
A memo also reportedly went out to employees informing them that documents “contrary to administration policy” would be thrown out, and that “tenuous theories of discrimination” would no longer be pursued.
Among those supposedly "tenuous" cases have been ones involving appraisal bias—the practice of undervaluing homes owned by Black families—zoning restrictions blocking housing for Black and Latino families, and cases related to discrimination against people over gender or gender expression.
The administration has also abandoned cases related to the racist practice of "redlining"—the decades-old practice of denying mortgages to minorities and others in minority neighborhoods—with memos from Trump appointees calling the concept "legally unsound."
The changes follow a sweeping set of executive orders from Trump during his first week in office, targeting "diversity equity, and inclusion" (DEI) programs. Employees at the Office of Fair Housing told the Times that Trump appointees had begun to describe much of the department's work as "an offshoot of DEI."
A HUD spokesperson, Kasey Lovett, told the Times that it was "patently false" to suggest that the administration was trying to weaken the Fair Housing Act. She pointed out that HUD was still handling approximately 4,100 cases this year, on par with the previous year. As the Times notes, "Lovett did not address, however, how many of the cases had been investigated or had resulted in legal action."
According to the Times:
Hundreds of pending fair housing cases were frozen, and some settlements revoked, even when accusations of discrimination had been substantiated, according to the interviews and the internal communications.
In one instance, a large homeowner’s association in Texas was found to have banned the use of housing vouchers by Black residents. That case had been referred to the Justice Department, but the referral was abruptly withdrawn by the new Trump appointees.
Four current staff members have provided the trove of documents to Warren, who announced Monday that she'd sent a request to Brian Harrison, HUD’s acting inspector general, to open an investigation into its handling of discrimination cases.
Warren said that the documents "show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law."
In a press release from the Democrats on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Warren, the ranking member, highlighted the particularly devastating impact staffing cuts have had on the enforcement of complaints under the Violence Against Women Act, which the Times says only two of the six lawyers remaining at HUD have experience with.
According to Warren, whistleblowers said the cuts were "placing survivors in greater danger of suffering additional trauma, physical violence, and even death."
Warren said that as a result of the hundreds of dropped cases, "Now people are asking, 'well, why would I file a case at all if nothing's going to happen?'"
Calling for an independent investigation, Warren said, "We wrote these laws to make this a fairer America, and now it's time to enforce those laws."
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Charlie Kirk’s Toxic Legacy of Hatred and Division
We can condemn political violence and this hideous murder while also condemning Charlie Kirk for the rotten, vile hatred he fomented.
Sep 11, 2025
In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, part of a distressing wave of political violence stalking this country, it would seem that the United States is coming apart at the seams, poised at the precipice of disintegration. So much hatred, so much anger, so much toxic rot, and so many, many guns. We are boiling a poisonous stew. Can anyone save us? Is there anyone or anything that can possibly cool us to a simmer, at least? At this time, it appears not—in fact, frighteningly, the rage that got us to this grim, spooky moment seems only to be spiraling.
Charlie Kirk had barely been declared dead when President Trump hideously used his killing to falsely blame and attack the Left. Trump seized the moment of widespread mourning to spread more hatred and division, in a reckless, angry televised speech that hurled blame at the Left despite not a scintilla of evidence about Kirk's assassin or their politics. In a predictable yet grotesque display, Trump raged, “For years, those on the radical Left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Trump went on to enumerate the attempts on his own life, the shooting of United Healthcare’s CEO, the shooting of Steve Scalise, and “attacks ICE agents”—zero mention of the assassinations of Democratic Minnesota lawmakers or others who don’t fit Trump’s vision of worthy right-wing martyrs.
It is not clear how we climb out of this cauldron we are boiling in. We must all condemn political violence on all fronts. We must also acknowledge that Kirk’s legacy of bigotry and division wages its own violence...
The man who said there were “good people on both sides” of the Charlottesville killings by right-wing white supremacists could not bring himself to even mention the tragic shootings of people on the other side of the political aisle.
Soon after Kirk’s murder, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) lunged for the political jugular, telling reporters, “Democrats own what happened today....some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck.” Mace hurled this profoundly reckless, irresponsible attack without a shred of evidence about the assassin’s politics.
These are not the people who are going to lead us out of this ugly toxic pit. They, along with Charlie Kirk, led us into it. Kirk became a wealthy influencer by spreading toxic rage and fear and division.
We can honor the sadness millions are feeling over Kirk’s murder, and maintain basic civil human decency, while also being honest about the deeply harmful and offensive things Charlie Kirk said. We can condemn political violence and Kirk’s murder while also condemning Charlie Kirk for the rotten, vile hatred he fomented.
And yes, while respecting that many are mourning, this is precisely the time to remind people of the hatred and division Kirk sowed and profited handsomely from.
Consider what Kirk said about Black women leaders and affirmative action. Assailing affirmative action “picks” Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Kirk said, sickeningly, “you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously” without affirmative action. “You had to steal a white person’s slot.”
Let’s sit with that for a moment. Charlie Kirk said these exceedingly smart, strong, successful Black women do not have brain processing power. This is the supposed hero for whom Trump lowered the flag to half-mast.
Kirk was an equal opportunity hater who called Martin Luther King, Jr. “awful,” and “not a good person,” while insisting, “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
In his gruesome rage against affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion, Kirk also spat out, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” That is some deeply racist garbage.
Kirk called gay and transgender people “groomers” who are “destructive,” opposed gay marriage, and campaigned against gender-affirming care for transgender people, insisting, “We must ban trans-affirming care—the entire country. Donald Trump needs to run on this issue,” Media Matters reported.
The legacy Kirk leaves behind burns on, a flame of reactionary anger and bigotry that keeps this country at a boiling point.
When Zohran Mamdani shocked the nation by winning the New York City Democratic primary, Kirk vented, hideously, “Twenty-four years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11…Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.” Kirk peddled in paranoid, racist, and Islamophobic right-wing nonsense. He called Islam “the sword the Left is using to slit the throat of America.” How profoundly rotten and hateful can one be?
Because Kirk was so energetically prolific, one can find endless examples of his fearmongering and bigotry. What needs to be said now, even or especially in this moment, is that Charlie Kirk mightily helped foment the rage and division that seems to engulf and define our nation today. Kirk helped create this toxic, poisonous stew we are drowning in—he fed it and profited from it.
Despite the unseemly frothing of Trump, Mace, and others, we do not know—as of this writing—who shot Kirk or why. We do not know if it came from the left, the right, or something else altogether. It is reasonable and right to condemn all shootings and political violence. I absolutely condemn the violence and this murder, just as I condemn the bigotry Kirk fomented in his brief time on this earth.
It is not clear how we climb out of this cauldron we are boiling in. We must all condemn political violence on all fronts. We must also acknowledge that Kirk’s legacy of bigotry and division wages its own violence—a cultural, social violence that causes real pain, rage, enmity, fear, and isolation. The legacy Kirk leaves behind burns on, a flame of reactionary anger and bigotry that keeps this country at a boiling point.
No one person will save us. We can hope (and work) for a cooling period that at least lowers the flame and slows the spiral. We can all say, stop the violence, stop the shootings. And let’s also say, just as strongly—stop the hatred, stop the fearmongering, stop the bigotry.
Correction: An earlier version of this article referred to Nancy Mace as a senator from North Carolina. She is a representative from South Carolina. It has been updated to reflect this.
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