If Companies Set Up Ethnic Affinity Groups for Employees, Must They Also Set Them Up for Jewish Employees?

Jewish Microsoft employees are no less deserving or in need of an ERG than other ethnic groups at Microsoft .

Jews are a people with a shared ethnic and ancestral heritage. Jews who never attend synagogue, observe Jewish holidays, practice Jewish religious rituals are still ethnically Jewish .

Microsoft 's ERGs share common features of ERGs at most Fortune 500 companies.

Jewish employees have "dropped out" of participating in Microsoft 's Interfaith ERG project.

Jewish Microsoft employees lack "communal" mechanism of an ERG to address anti-Semitism.

Microsoft 's insistence on defining Jewish identity inconsistent with Jewish employees' own self-definition.

Microsoft needs to heed the government's call, and follow the law, and recognize its Jewish employees.

Indeed, much hostility to Jews focuses on their ethnicity, applying equally to secular Jews and religious Jews ; such ethnic discrimination is indeed forbidden. Whether this antidiscrimination rule extends to employers' provision of ethnic and racial affinity groups, and the various intangible (but potentially significant) benefits that membership in those groups can provide, is a separate matter. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft says, and what courts say if there is indeed litigation..