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87 Mo. L. Rev. 365 (2022)
Ending Political Discrimination in the Workplace

handle is hein.journals/molr87 and id is 372 raw text is: Ending Political Discrimination in the Workplace Craig R. Senn ABSTRACT Currently, a significant disparity exists in workplace legal protections for an employee's political affiliation. On one hand, public sector (federal, state, or local government) employees enjoy a bevy of protections. For example, twenty million state and local government employees rely on the First Amendment (and 42 U.S.C. § 1983) to guard against workplace discrimination based on political affiliation. Over two million federal government civil service employees lean on the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) to provide that same protection. The story is far different for private sector employees - their protections are spotty at best. To begin, these First Amendment and CSRA protections do not apply to private sector employees, and our federal employment discrimination laws do not protect political affiliation as a characteristic. Indeed, state laws have some potential to protect these private sector employees. But about half of states lack such laws, and the half that have them offer varying degrees of political affiliation protection. Likewise, an obscure Reconstruction- era statute (42 U.S.C. § 1985 (Section 1985)) has some potential to guard against workplace discrimination based on political affiliation. But most jurisdictions severely limit application of Section 1985 in one or more ways. To address this significant disparity in workplace legal protections, political affiliation should be added as a protected *Janet Mary Riley Distinguished Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law; J.D., with Honors, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995; B.A., Summa Cum Laude, University of Georgia, 1992. The author's e-mail address is csenn@loyno.edu. I would like to thank Dean Madeleine Landrieu & Loyola University New Orleans College of Law for supporting this project, Anna M. Hoiberg, Benjamin Landau-Beispiel, and Caitlion O'Neill for their valuable research and helpful input, and Sharon Senn & Sarah Senn for their support. For Scout.

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