Common use of Prohibited Personnel Practices Clause in Contracts

Prohibited Personnel Practices. SECTION A. The Parties acknowledge that it is a prohibited personnel practice for any employee who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action to engage in any of the following: 1. Discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex or gender, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, or political affiliations; 2. Soliciting or considering employment recommendations not based on personal knowledge or records of the individual's work performance, ability, aptitude, general qualifications, suitability, character, or loyalty; 3. Coercing the political activity of any person; 4. Deceiving or willfully obstructing anyone competing for employment; 5. Influencing anyone to withdraw from competition for any position, whether to help or hurt anyone else's employment prospects; 6. Giving unauthorized preferential treatment to any employee or applicant; 7. Taking specified personnel actions based on nepotism; 8. Taking or failing to take, or threatening to take or fail to take, a personnel action with respect to any employee or applicant for employment because any protected disclosure of information, to parties specified under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8), of information evidencing specified kinds of governmental wrongdoing — that is, whistleblowing; 9. Taking or failing to take, or threatening to take or fail to take, any personnel action because of exercising an appeal right; testifying or lawfully assisting any individual in the exercise of any appeal right; cooperating with and dis- closing information to the Inspector General of an agency or the Special Counsel; or refusing to obey an order that would require the individual to violate a law; 10. Discriminating on the basis of personal conduct that does not adversely affect the performance of any employee or applicant or the performance of others, except in case of criminal conviction for the conduct; and 11. Taking or failing to take any other personnel action if that would violate any law, rule, or regulation implementing or directly concerning the merit system’s principles. SECTION B. Employees who believe they have been discriminated against for any of the reasons cited in Section A may elect to file either (1) a complaint under the negotiated grievance procedure, or (2) a complaint with the United States Office of Special Counsel under statutory and regulatory procedures.