• The federal government of the United States protects workers from unfair discrimination by employers through laws intended to insure equal access to jobs. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces these laws, which prohibit employers from denying jobs to applicants based on such things as the person's age, race, disability or genetic information.
  
  

Age

• According to the EEOC website, the Age Discrimination in Employment act prohibits discrimination against workers age 40 and over. This Federal law only protects older applicants and employees. The law forbids personal harassment, such as a pattern of offensive remarks, based on a person's age. It also protects workers against age discrimination in such things as pay, promotion, layoffs, fringe benefits, firings and job assignment.
  
  

Disability

• Both the Americans with Disability Act, which covers most workers, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which covers federal employees and applicants for federal jobs, prohibit employment discrimination based on a person's disability. The law requires that an employer must make a reasonable attempt to accommodate a person's disability unless doing so would put an "undue hardship" on the employer. According to the EEOC, reasonable accommodations might include making a workplace wheelchair-accessible, or providing an interpreter for a hearing-impaired person.
  
  

Race or Color

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on a person's race or color. Such discrimination may also apply to treating a worker or applicant unfavorably because of the race or color of his spouse, or because he associates with a group or organization that is race-based. The law prohibits harassment based on a person's race or color, including race-based offensive remarks, displaying offensive symbols, and the use of racial slurs. It does not matter if the person who discriminates against an employee is of the same race or color as the victim. The behavior is still forbidden.
  
  

Genetic Information

• The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee or applicant based on her genetic information. The EEOC considers defines "genetic information" as a person's individual genetic tests or the genetic tests of family members, as well as a person's family medical history. Family medical history is included to prevent employers from screening employees based on a perceived risk of future illness.