Hello again,

Thank you for the information and your question. Just to clarify what I meant by the question about being in a protected class, you hit the nail on the head. I was wondering if you might be a minority or otherwise covered by employment civil rights as protected from discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, gender, religion, etc. So, the fact that you are Hispanic might be an issue here.

That said, I have read the company policy and it does have some qualifiers. First, of course, there must be an approval and second it appears that the program must relate to present or future jobs with the company. However, you say that you were told that the decision to deny you was based on finances. That would be a legitimate reason, as would many reasons, if true.

The long and short of it is that this benefit is not a legal right. So, that means it can be denied as long as the employer is not violating their own policy, which doesn't appear to be the case since it is very clear that it is a case by case decision, OR as long as the employer is not excluding employees simply because they are a member of a protected class under employment discrimination laws.

That means that if you firmly believe that you are being denied because you are Hispanic and not because the employer didn't have some other non-discriminatory reason for denying you, then you could file a discrimination complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and/or the EEOC. You would want to consult with a local employment law attorney as well.

However, if you do not believe that this is about your national origin or race, then you really wouldn't appear to have any legal recourse based on the policy alone since it is not a guaranteed benefit as written.


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