Digital Commons Network^™

Seniority Rights Vs. Racial Quotas, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

Reagan Redux: Civil Rights Under Bush, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights Without Remedies: Vicarious Liability Under Title Vii, Section 1983, And Title Ix, Catherine Fisk, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

The Supreme Court has taken an inconsistent approach to allowing vicarious liability under major civil rights statutes. In recent cases, the Court has permitted qualified vicarious liability for supervisors' sexual harassment under Title VII, but rejected vicarious liability under Title IX. Earlier, the Court rejected vicarious liability for local governments sued under Section 1983. In this Article, Professors Fisk and Chemerinsky describe the Court's inconsistent approaches and argue that they cannot bejustfied by the text or legislative history of these statutes. Professors Fisk and Chemerinsky argue that each of these statutes is meant to achieve the same purpose, deterring civil …

Civil Rights Without Remedies: Vicarious Liability Under Title Vii, Section 1983, And Title Ix, Catherine Fisk, Erwin Chemerinsky

Catherine Fisk

The Supreme Court has taken an inconsistent approach to allowing vicarious liability under major civil rights statutes. In recent cases, the Court has permitted qualified vicarious liability for supervisors' sexual harassment under Title VII, but rejected vicarious liability under Title IX. Earlier, the Court rejected vicarious liability for local governments sued under Section 1983. In this Article, Professors Fisk and Chemerinsky describe the Court's inconsistent approaches and argue that they cannot bejustfied by the text or legislative history of these statutes. Professors Fisk and Chemerinsky argue that each of these statutes is meant to achieve the same purpose, deterring civil …

How Employment Discrimination Plaintiffs Fare In Federal Court, Kevin M. Clermont, Stewart J. Schwab

Stewart J Schwab

This article presents the full range of information that the Administrative Office’s data convey on federal employment discrimination litigation. From that information, the authors tell three stories about (1) bringing these claims, (2) their outcome in the district court, and (3) the effect of appeal. Each of these stories is a sad one for employment discrimination plaintiffs: relatively often, the numerous plaintiffs must pursue their claims all the way through trial, which is usually a jury trial; at both pretrial and trial these plaintiffs lose disproportionately often, in all the various types of employment discrimination cases; and employment discrimination litigants …

Mcdonnell Douglas, 1973-2003: May You Rest In Peace?, William Corbett

William R. Corbett

No abstract provided.

Saving Disparate Impact, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

More than four decades ago, the Supreme Court concluded that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition on racial discrimination in employment is properly construed to forbid “practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent,” that nevertheless “operate as ‘built-in headwinds’ for minority groups . . . that are unrelated to testing job capability.” In the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress codified liability for cases in which an employer “uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national …

The Right To Be Fat, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

Policy discussions on the increasing weight of Americans, portrayed as a problem of monumental and grim outlook, preoccupy public health experts, scientists, economists, and the popular media. In the legal field, however, discussions have tended to focus on whether weight should be a protected category under antidiscrimination law and on cost-benefit models for creating incentives to lose weight. This Article takes a novel approach to thinking about weight in the legal context. First, it maps the diverse ways in which the law is recruited to “the war against obesity,” thus providing an unprecedented account of what it means to be …

Consensual Amorous Relationships Between Faculty And Students: The Constitutional Right To Privacy, Elisabeth A. Keller

Elisabeth Keller

Surveys of college students in the United States revealed that a significant number of students thought they had been victims of some form of sexual harassment. Growing awareness of the magnitude, dimensions, and effects of sexual harassment at educational institutions and the potential for institutional liability have prompted educators to adopt policies to avert such problems. The policies typically prohibit sexual harassment of employees and students and alert the university community to the serious effects of sexual harassment and the potential for student exploitation. Some universities have gone beyond establishing regulations directed at widely litigated problems of sexual harassment and …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Achieving More Just Results In Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment Cases By Re-Examining Supreme Court Precedent, Elisabeth A. Keller, Judith B. Tracy

Elisabeth Keller

Lower federal courts often fail to provide plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases the relief intended by Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 and mandated by the Supreme Court when it recognized the cause of action twenty years ago. There is little doubt that sexual harassment in the workplace persists. However, lower courts misapply or ignore Supreme Court reasoning that would result in fairer and more consistent dispositions in hostile work environment sexual harassment cases. This article draws directly on reasoning from the Supreme Court cases to explain the sources of the confusion in the lower courts and offers …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Achieving More Just Results In Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment Cases By Re-Examining Supreme Court Precedent, Elisabeth A. Keller, Judith B. Tracy

Elisabeth Keller

Lower federal courts often fail to provide plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases the relief intended by Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 and mandated by the Supreme Court when it recognized the cause of action twenty years ago. There is little doubt that sexual harassment in the workplace persists. However, lower courts misapply or ignore Supreme Court reasoning that would result in fairer and more consistent dispositions in hostile work environment sexual harassment cases. This article draws directly on reasoning from the Supreme Court cases to explain the sources of the confusion in the lower courts and offers …

Last Hired, First Fired Layoffs And Title Vii, James S. Rogers

James S. Rogers

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The 2000 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Recent Decisions, Phoebe A. Haddon

Phoebe A. Haddon

No abstract provided.

Theorizing And Litigating The Rights Of Sexual Minorities, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

One of the best measures of a society is how it treats its vulnerable groups. A central idea in Professor Martha Nussbaum's writings is that all humans "are of equal dignity and worth, no matter where they are situated in society." The strategic challenge in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) rights litigation is how to get courts to see sexual minorities as people worthy of equal dignity and respect. This article focuses on the roles of a positive emotion - love - and a procedural method of proof - science - in the shaping of laws defining the rights …

Survey Of The Federal Government On Supervisor Practices In Employment Of People With Disabilities, Susanne M. Bruyere, William Erickson, Richard L. Horne

Susanne Bruyère

In 1999, the Presidential Task Force on the Employment of Adults with Disabilities (PTFEAD) funded Cornell University to conduct a survey of federal sector HR and EEO representatives regarding their experience implementing the employment disability nondiscrimination requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990(ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. One of the recommendations from this research was to conduct a follow-up study of federal agency supervisors and managers about their experience in accommodation and employment of persons with disabilities in the federal sector, and in addition to inquire about their awareness of the series of Executive …

Embracing Segregation: The Jurisprudence Of Choice And Diversity In Race And Sex Separatism In Schools, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation based on race and sex is sweeping the nation's educational systems. Courts are rapidly dismantling desegregation orders, and when those desegregation orders end, school districts racially resegregate. At precisely the same time this end to racial desegregation is occurring, the government is beginning to sponsor sex segregation in schools as well. The No Child Left Behind Act provides over $400 million in federal funds for experiments in education, such as single-sex schools and classes. Embracing Segregation draws connections between the end of racial desegregation and the beginning of government-sponsored sex segregation …

Rights Of Inequality: Rawlsian Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Status Of The Family, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the "basic institutions of society" to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity (the first part of the the Difference …

Separating Equals: Educational Research And The Long Term Consequences Of Sex Segregation, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

The article imports into the legal literature for the first time the full range of single sex education research, from this country and others, and examines sociological research that has been omitted from the debate. Rarely do proponents consider what educational and social effects sex-exclusive schooling will have on boys. Rarer still is any consideration of the effect of educational segregation in a society that is already relentlessly segregated by sex. While the educational research regarding the efficacy of single sex schools is mixed at best, the sociological research is absolutely clear that separation on the basis of identity characteristics …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …