Issue Guide–Fair Play: How the Law Protects Employees Disclosing Discrimination (Even the Fashionable “Woke” Kind) from Retaliation
Today, the ACR Project published a new Issue Guide–Fair Play: How the Law Protects Employees Disclosing Discrimination (Even the Fashionable “Woke” Kind) from Retaliation. You can download the full document below.
Why Should I?
Americans enjoy broad protections (at the state, federal, and sometimes even local levels) against discrimination (especially in the workplace). Despite these laws, the last decade saw the widespread adoption of various forms of trendy discrimination in employment and contracting. In early 2025, a much heralded “vibe shift” started to unwind this trend, but there remains all the difference in the world between “starting” to unwind it and “ending” widespread faddish discrimination.
To some large degree, we will only ever get from here to there if individual Americans make it happen. Our laws are protective and—at least as of this writing (Spring 2025)—the Executive Branch expresses a deep commitment to enforcing them. But civil rights enforcers can only challenge discrimination they know about, and our courts can only decide cases that are actually filed. The law will only come to bear where individual Americans come forward—the law will only correct the identitarians’ systematic embrace of illegal discrimination when individual Americans in numbers expose what they see happening at the institutions where they work.
Our laws reflect the reality that most Americans want to live in a country free of race and sex discrimination. We’ve prepared the guide that follows for this silent supermajority: people who believe in equality under the law and want to stop discrimination when they see it. We want you to know how to go about saying something, and we want you to know that you can do so without fearing legal or professional retaliation for doing the right thing.
You know what you know. We don’t. Neither does the administration. Nor do the courts. None of the rest of us will know what you know until you make it known. America needs you to come forward in order to become the more perfect union we all seek, where institutions respect the public’s moral demands of fair treatment and where, as a result, all our people get considered on their personal merits, rather than as interchangeable units of demography.
Know that the law wants you to do so. Know that—demonstrating how strongly this is the case—federal (and state and sometimes local) laws provide express protections to people in your situation. America shields “whistleblowers” from retaliation, primarily by guarantying the right of even potential whistleblowers to consult counsel and by allowing those punished for blowing their whistles to recover damages from those who tried to silence them.
If You See Something, Say Something
Even if it sounds campy, “if you see something, say something.” Tell it first to a lawyer, and then to the colleagues, government officials, or other authorities you and your attorney determine are necessary or appropriate recipients in your individual situation. Know that at every stage of this process—as this guide will explain in more detail—first, that you are well within your rights, and second, that if anyone tries to silence or retaliate against you for doing the right thing, you’ll be protected by strong legal remedies.