D.C. councilwoman pushes to allow interns to sue

By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
January 6, 2009

D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh is sponsoring legislation that will allow interns to sue for harassment or discrimination.

“Washington, D.C. is the best internship city in the country,” Cheh said in a news release. “It boggles the mind that interns have been denied these basic legal protections.”

The bill, to be introduced at today’s council session, closes what Cheh is calling “a loophole” in D.C. law that says only paid employees can sue if they suffer discrimination or sexual harassment. The loophole was exposed in November, when a federal judge tossed out a suit filed by college student Jamie Evans. Evans alleged she had been groped and victimized by sexual advances of a boss at a chiropractor’s office, but federal Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle held that D.C.’s Human Rights Act doesn’t covered unpaid workers.

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Reader Comments

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Hope

Jan 6, 2009

I like Councilwoman Cheh. She seems to care for people and the way some employers will treat people whether paid or not, no one should endure such treatment. There is HOPE still in the DC City Council.

fwinstead

Jan 6, 2009

Sounds like she is creating make-work jobs for all those student-loan burdened lawyers she mass-produced on the GW law school assembly line over several decades.

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