Mark Roehling, associate professor, School of Labor and Industrial Relations, College of Social Science

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Mark Roehling’s research into weight discrimination in the workplace led to a surprising discovery.

Roehling, associate professor of human resource management, discovered few people file cases invoking weight discrimination, even though Michigan is the only state that legally addresses it.

“I thought back about my days as a lawyer, and I couldn’t recall, even though I knew the law prohibited weight discrimination, I could never recall seeing a case that actually was successfully prosecuted or presented by a plaintiff,” he said.

“There are a number of psychological and other barriers that seem to prevent people from successfully going forward with weight discrimination claims.”

Even in the 12 years that Roehling has been tracking weight discrimination cases, the number of claims has increased slightly.

Roehling’s career began in human resource management before returning to law school and practicing employment law for eight years.

 “So the areas that I get most passionate and interested about doing research tends to combine human resource practices and legal issues and what I view as connected ethical and social policy issues,” he said.