Local
D.C. councilwoman pushes to allow interns to sue
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
January 6, 2009
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“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.
