Protected Class Definitions
Protected Class Definitions
Age: The number of years from the date of a person’s birth. With respect to employment, individuals who are forty (40) years of age or older are protected from Discrimination and Harassment (as defined below). There is no age threshold for students or other participants in educational programs or activities.
Ancestry (Canada only): Includes where a person’s family is from.
Color: An individual’s skin pigmentation, complexion, shade, or tone.
Creed: A well-formed and thought-out set of beliefs held by more than one individual, which may not necessarily involve belief in a supreme being. Subject to applicable law, the University will accommodate an individual’s observance and practices required by their creed, unless it is unable to reasonably accommodate an individual’s creed-required observance or practice without undue hardship.
Disability: A person with a disability is any person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; or has a record of such impairment; or is regarded as having such impairment. Subject to applicable law, a qualified person with a disability must be able to perform the essential functions of the employment or volunteer position or the academic athletic or extracurricular program, with or without reasonable accommodation.
Family Status (Canada only): Includes being related to another person by blood, marriage or adoptions. It also includes family type (e.g., a single parent family) and who is in the family.
Gender: An individual’s socially constructed status based on the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with societal attribution of masculinity and femininity, typically related to one’s assigned sex at birth.
Gender Expression: How someone expresses gender through appearance, behavior, or mannerisms. A person’s gender expression may or may not be the same as the gender identity or assigned sex at birth.
Gender Identity: The gender with which an individual identifies psychologically, regardless of what gender was assigned at birth.
Genetic Information: Information about (i) an individual’s genetic tests, (ii) the genetic tests of family members of such individuals, and (iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family members of such individual. Genetic information includes, with respect to any individual, any requests for, or receipt of, genetic services, or participation in clinical research that includes genetic services by such individual or any family member of such individual.
Indigenous Identity (Canada only): Indigenous identity means being First Nations, Métis, or Inuit. This definition comes from the Human Rights Code. Section 1 defines “Indigenous” as follows: “Indigenous”, in relation to a person, means Indigenous within the meaning of “Indigenous peoples” as defined in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act says (in section 1(1)): “Indigenous peoples” has the same meaning as aboriginal people in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 The Constitution Act, 1982 says (in section 35(2)): In this Act, aboriginal peoples of Canada includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.
Marital Status (Canada only): Includes being married, single, widowed, divorced, separated or living common-law. It also includes who a person’s spouse is (e.g., being discriminated against because of who a person’s wife is).
Mental Disability (Canada only): Mental disability includes mental conditions that affect or are seen as affecting a person’s abilities. Mental disability includes such conditions as a learning disorder, developmental disability, or illness such as depression or bipolar disorder.
National Origin: An individual’s actual or perceived country or ethnicity of origin.
Physical Disability (Canada only): Physical disability includes physical conditions that affect or are seen as affecting a person’s abilities. Physical disability includes conditions that impair a person’s ability to carry out the normal functions of life. It includes addiction, amputation, asthma, acne, diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, high blood pressure, hypertension, obesity and impairments to mobility. It includes people who are Deaf, hard of hearing, or blind. It does not include short-lived conditions such as a cold.
Political Belief (Canada only): Political belief includes support of a political party or group that advocates political change, and beliefs about the organization and governance of communities. It includes advocacy for a change to legislation. It is only protected in employment, employment advertisements, and membership in a union or occupational association.
Race: An individual’s actual or perceived racial or ethnic ancestry or physical characteristics associated with a person’s race, such as a person’s skin color, hair, facial features, height, and weight.
Religion: All aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.
Sex: An individual’s biological status of male or female, including pregnancy. Conduct of a sexual nature is by definition based on sex as a protected status.
Sexual Orientation: The inclination or capacity to develop intimate emotional, spiritual, physical, and/or sexual relationships with people of the same sex or gender, a different sex or gender, or irrespective of sex or gender.
Veteran Status: Covered Veterans include Disabled Veterans, Special Disabled Veterans, Veterans of the Vietnam era, and other protected Veterans as defined by federal and state law.