Caregiver Discrimination at Work

“Please Don't Get Pregnant Until I Retire.”

A school psychologist in New York spent two years earning glowing reviews. Then she came back from maternity leave. Her supervisors asked how she was “planning on spacing her offspring,” told her to wait until her son was in kindergarten to have another, and eventually told her not to get pregnant again until the supervisor retired. After she was later denied tenure, she sued under the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, since her employer was a public school district. The Second Circuit let her case go to trial against the two supervisors who made those comments. The case, Back v. Hastings on Hudson Union Free School District, 365 F.3d 107 (2d Cir. 2004), is now one of the two cases every employment lawyer cites when talking about caregiver discrimination.

Caregiver Discrimination Isn't Its Own Federal Category

Under federal law, being a caregiver is not, by itself, a protected trait. Title VII contains no reference to caregivers. What federal law does prohibit is using caregiver status as a proxy for discriminating based on sex, disability, or another trait that is protected. That distinction is technical, but it determines the outcome in most of these cases.

Case to Know: Chadwick v. WellPoint, Inc

In Chadwick v. WellPoint, Inc., 561 F.3d 38 (1st Cir. 2009), Laurie Chadwick was passed over for a promotion in favor of a less-qualified colleague after the decision-maker remarked that Chadwick, a mother of four, might have trouble committing to the demands of the role. The First Circuit allowed her sex discrimination claim to proceed, holding that assuming a mother will be less committed to her job because she is a mother is itself sex stereotyping, regardless of whether the person who received the promotion was also a woman. As the court explained, the statute does not prohibit discrimination based on caregiving responsibility as such, but assumptions about what caregiving means for a woman’s commitment to her job are a different matter.

DC Actually Closes That Gap

The jurisdiction matters here. The DC Human Rights Act lists family responsibilities as its own protected trait, independent of any sex-stereotyping argument. An employee doesn’t need to show the employer assumed something about their gender, only that they were treated worse because of their caregiving obligations. See our Family Responsibilities Discrimination hub for how this trait is defined and enforced in DC.

Illinois has taken a comparable approach, passing a law effective January 1, 2025 that prohibits discrimination based on caregiving responsibilities for a wide range of family members, including children, spouses, in-laws, and grandparents. Most states have not enacted anything similar. Outside these jurisdictions, a caregiver discrimination claim generally has to be built the way Chadwick’s was, tied to an existing protected trait rather than standing on its own.

What Caregiver Discrimination Actually Looks Like

  • Comments about commitment or reliability tied to parenthood or caregiving.
  • Being reassigned away from travel, client-facing work, or advancement opportunities after a supervisor learns of a pregnancy, a new child, or a family member’s illness.
  • Leave or schedule flexibility granted to some employees but denied to others in materially the same situation.
  • Assumptions stated out loud, in an interview or a performance review, about what someone with kids or an ailing parent can or can’t handle.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Fathers, adult children caring for aging parents, and people caring for a spouse or sibling can all be affected. Most reported cases involve mothers, largely because that’s where the stereotyping has been most documented, not because the law is limited to them
Possibly. Explicit comments, like the ones in Back and Chadwick, make a case easier to prove, but a documented pattern, being passed over repeatedly right after returning from leave, for instance, can support a claim even without a smoking-gun quote.
The Family and Medical Leave Act protects your right to take covered leave and return to your job, which is a related but different question from whether you were discriminated against because of your caregiving status. The two often come up in the same case, but they’re separate legal theories.

Bottom Line

Being treated differently at work because of caregiving responsibilities, whether for a child, a parent, or another family member, may be illegal even in states that don’t recognize caregivers as their own protected category. In most jurisdictions, the claim has to be tied to an existing protected trait. In DC, it does not.

Questions About Caregiver Discrimination at Work?

Speak with Wilkenfeld Law Office about your situation and learn what options may be available.
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This post provides general information and is not legal advice. Contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you believe you’ve faced discrimination because of your caregiving responsibilities, contact us for a free consultation.

Reviewed by Ari Wilkenfeld, Esq. (DC Bar No. 461063; MD Bar No. 9806240300). Ari has over 27 years of experience litigating in federal and state courts, and before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and various arbitration panels. Ari has been recognized by Esquire Magazine as “a famously determined Civil Rights lawyer” and by the New York Post as “a high powered DC Lawyer.” Last updated: September 22, 2026.

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