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Full-Text Articles in Law
Harassment, Workplace Culture, And The Power And Limits Of Law, Suzanne B. Goldberg
Harassment, Workplace Culture, And The Power And Limits Of Law, Suzanne B. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
This article asks why it remains so difficult for employers to prevent and respond effectively to harassment, especially sexual harassment, and identifies promising points for legal intervention. It is sobering to consider social-science evidence of the myriad barriers to reporting sexual harassment – from the individual-level and interpersonal to those rooted in society at large. Most of these are out of reach for an employer but workplace culture stands out as a significant arena where employers have influence on whether harassment and other discriminatory behaviors are likely to thrive. Yet employers typically make choices in this area with attention to …
Coaches In Court: Legal Challenges To Sex Discrimination In College Athletics, Erin E. Buzuvis
Coaches In Court: Legal Challenges To Sex Discrimination In College Athletics, Erin E. Buzuvis
Faculty Scholarship
Sex discrimination continues to operate in the working environment of college athletics. Female coaches experience bias both because of their sex and the intersections of gender stereotypes with stereotypes about women of color, lesbians, and aging. The law continues to be a leverage to challenge barriers to women’s leadership in college sports. This Article provides an overview of the relevant legal protections in three cases brought by coaches Beth Burns, Tracey Griesbaum, and Shannon Miller. Their cases expose discrimination and the double standard related to the value of female coaches’ success.
The Many Lanes Out Of Court: Privatization Of Employment Discrimination Disputes, Theresa M. Beiner
The Many Lanes Out Of Court: Privatization Of Employment Discrimination Disputes, Theresa M. Beiner
Faculty Scholarship
Despite employment gains made by women, older Americans, and racial and religious minorities, employment discrimination remains a persistent problem in the American workplace. Scholars have lamented that employment discrimination laws have not proven effective in eliminating the many vestiges of discrimination that still linger. Many scholars blame the lackluster enforcement of employment discrimination laws on the federal courts' inability to understand or theorize about the lingering aspects of discrimination based on race and sex that still pervade the modern workplace as well as judicial hostility to employment discrimination claims. Recent data suggest that this has led some employment discrimination claimants …
The Trouble With Torgerson: The Latest Effort To Summarily Adjudicate Employment Discrimination Cases, Theresa M. Beiner
The Trouble With Torgerson: The Latest Effort To Summarily Adjudicate Employment Discrimination Cases, Theresa M. Beiner
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Clothes Don't Make The Man (Or Woman), But Gender Identity Might, Jennifer Levi
Clothes Don't Make The Man (Or Woman), But Gender Identity Might, Jennifer Levi
Faculty Scholarship
The Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Jespersen v. Harrah's Operating Co., Inc. reflects the blinders on many contemporary courts regarding the impact of sex-differentiated dress requirements on female employees. Although some courts have acknowledged the impermissibility of imposing sexually exploitive dress requirements, they have done so only at the extreme outer limits, ignoring the concrete harms experienced by women (and men) who are forced to conform to externally imposed gender norms. On the other hand, some transgender litigants have recently succeeded in challenging sex-differentiated dress requirements. This success is due in part to their incorporation of disability claims based on …
A Reasonable Belief: In Support Of Lgbt Plaintiffs' Title Vii Retaliation Claims, Erin E. Buzuvis
A Reasonable Belief: In Support Of Lgbt Plaintiffs' Title Vii Retaliation Claims, Erin E. Buzuvis
Faculty Scholarship
When an LGBT employee is punished for complaining about discrimination in the workplace, he or she has two potential causes of action under Title VII: first, a challenge to the underlying discrimination, and second, a challenge to the resulting retaliation. The first claim is vulnerable to dismissal under courts’ narrow interpretation of Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination “because of sex” as applied to LGBT plaintiffs. But such an outcome need not determine the fate of the second claim. Faithful application of retaliation law’s “reasonable belief” standard, which protects a plaintiff from reprisal so long as she reasonably believed that she …
The Uncertain Impact Of Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Michael Harper
The Uncertain Impact Of Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Michael Harper
Faculty Scholarship
It has been less than two years since the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. 2541 (2011). During this short period the Court’s opinion has been interpreted by numerous lower courts. It also, not surprisingly, has been the subject of a substantial amount of commentary in law reviews and numerous proposals for legislative reform to restore a promise of class action challenges to employment discrimination that the Dukes decision allegedly shattered. Drawing from this commentary, I would choose these two very different articles as useful guides for tracking the impact of Dukes on employment discrimination class …
Subordinate Bias Liability, Theresa M. Beiner
Subordinate Bias Liability, Theresa M. Beiner
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Decent Work, Older Workers, And Vulnerability In The Economic Recession: A Comparative Study Of Australia, The United Kingdom, And The United States, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Andrew Frazer, Malcolm Sargeant
Decent Work, Older Workers, And Vulnerability In The Economic Recession: A Comparative Study Of Australia, The United Kingdom, And The United States, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Andrew Frazer, Malcolm Sargeant
Faculty Scholarship
In countries with aging populations, the global recession presents unique challenges for older workers, and compels an assessment of how they are faring. To this end, the International Labour Organization's concept of decent work provides a useful metric or yardstick. Decent work, a multifaceted conception, assists in revealing the interdependence of measures needed to secure human dignity across the course of working lives. With this in mind, in three English-speaking, common law countries (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), this Article considers several decent work principles applicable to older workers and provides evaluations in light of them. Relevant …
Employment Discrimination In The Ethnically Diverse Workplace, Tanya K. Hernandez
Employment Discrimination In The Ethnically Diverse Workplace, Tanya K. Hernandez
Faculty Scholarship
Racial integration has long been the touchstone of racial progress in the workplace. But integration is only the beginning of the struggle to end racial discrimination. As workplaces become more diverse, they do not necessarily become less racially discriminatory. Diverse workplaces may be characterized by antagonism between people of different races. Interethnic discrimination may exist alongside the discrimination that has traditionally occurred between blacks and whites, i.e., non-white racial and ethnic groups may engage in disparate-treatment employment discrimination actionable under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Examples of interethnic discrimination occur among members of different ethnic subgroups, as …
Sidelined: Title Ix Retaliation Cases And Women's Leadership In College Athletics, Erin E. Buzuvis
Sidelined: Title Ix Retaliation Cases And Women's Leadership In College Athletics, Erin E. Buzuvis
Faculty Scholarship
Discrimination against women seeking or serving in leadership positions in sport is worthy of analysis, not only for the sake of individual women who desire to self-actualize as a head coach or athletic administrator, but because the unique role of sport in society gives underrepresentation of women in leadership positions additional significance. Due to its high visibility and widespread appeal—its veritable iconic status—sport is a salient site of cultural production. That is, sport operates on a symbolic level, reflecting and transmitting shared cultural values. Among these values, sport helps define the attributes associated with leadership, and thus, derivatively, power. By …
The Effect Of Court-Ordered Hiring Quotas On The Composition And Quality Of Police, Justin Mccrary
The Effect Of Court-Ordered Hiring Quotas On The Composition And Quality Of Police, Justin Mccrary
Faculty Scholarship
Arguably the most aggressive affirmative action program ever implemented in the United States was a series of court-ordered racial hiring quotas imposed on municipal police departments. My best estimate of the effect of court-ordered affirmative action on work-force composition is a 14-percentage-point gain in the fraction African American among newly hired officers. Evidence on police performance is mixed. Despite substantial black-white test score differences on police department entrance examinations, city crime rates appear unaffected by litigation. However, litigation lowers slightly both arrests per crime and the fraction black among serious arrestees.
Latino Inter-Ethnic Employment Discrimination And The Diversity Defense, Tanya K. Hernandez
Latino Inter-Ethnic Employment Discrimination And The Diversity Defense, Tanya K. Hernandez
Faculty Scholarship
With the growing racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. population and workforce, scholars have begun to address the ways in which coalition building across groups not only will continue to be necessary but also will become even more complex. Recent scholarship has focused on analyzing how best to promote effective coalition building. Thus far, scholars have not examined what that growing racial and ethnic diversity will mean in the context of individual racial and ethnic discrimination claims. What will antidiscrimination litigation look like when all the parties involved are non-White but nonetheless plaintiffs allege that a racial hierarchy exists …
Take What You Can, Give Nothing Back: Judicial Estoppel, Employment Discrimination, Bankruptcy, And Piracy In The Courts, Theresa M. Beiner, Robert B. Chapman
Take What You Can, Give Nothing Back: Judicial Estoppel, Employment Discrimination, Bankruptcy, And Piracy In The Courts, Theresa M. Beiner, Robert B. Chapman
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Multiracial Matrix: The Role Of Race Ideology In The Enforcement Of Antidiscrimination Laws, A United States-Latin America Comparison, Tanya K. Hernandez
Multiracial Matrix: The Role Of Race Ideology In The Enforcement Of Antidiscrimination Laws, A United States-Latin America Comparison, Tanya K. Hernandez
Faculty Scholarship
This Article examines the role of race ideology in the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws. Professor Hernandez demonstrates the ways in which the U.S. race ideology is slowly starting to resemble the race ideology of much of Latin America. The evolving U.S. race ideology is a multiracial matrix made up of four precepts: (1) racial mixture and diverse racial demography will resolve racial problems; (2) fluid racial classification schemes are an indicator of racial progress and the colorblind abolition of racial classifications an indicator of absolute racial harmony; (3) racism is solely a phenomenon of aberrant racist individuals; and (4) focusing …
Second Generation Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach, Susan Sturm
Second Generation Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach, Susan Sturm
Faculty Scholarship
The judiciary's traditional rule-based approach has been successful in reducing overt discrimination against women and people of color. It has been less effective in addressing more subtle and complex forms of workplace inequity. These second generation forms of bias result from patterns of interaction, informal norms, networking, mentoring, and evaluation. Drawing on the potential of recent Supreme Court decisions, Professor Sturm proposes a structural regulatory solution to this problem of second generation employment discrimination. Her approach links the efforts of courts, workplaces, employees, lawyers, and mediating organizations to construct a regime that encourages employers to engage in effective problem solving. …
An Ounce Of Prevention Is A Poor Substitute For A Pound Of Cure: Confronting The Developing Jurisprudence Of Education And Prevention In Employment Discrimination Law, Susan Bisom-Rapp
Faculty Scholarship
This article challenges a widely shared conviction that has had a tremendous impact on employer practices and, most recently, on employment discrimination jurisprudence. More specifically, the piece interrogates the belief that employee education can prevent, or at least greatly curb, invidious employment discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and other civil rights statutes. This premise, broadly held and rarely questioned, has spawned a multi-billion dollar sexual harassment and diversity training industry staffed by consultants, attorneys, and human resource professionals, who offer programs aimed at litigation prevention. Yet, there is absolutely no empirical support for the premise …
Colorism: A Darker Shade Of Pale, Taunya Lovell Banks
Colorism: A Darker Shade Of Pale, Taunya Lovell Banks
Faculty Scholarship
In this article, Professor Banks argues that colorism, skin tone discrimination against dark-skinned but not light-skinned blacks, constitutes a form of race-based discrimination. Skin tone discrimination coexists with more traditional forms of race discrimination that impact all blacks without regard to skin tone and phenotype, yet courts seem unwilling to recognize this point. Professor Banks uses employment discrimination cases to illustrate some courts' willingness to acknowledge subtler forms of race-based discrimination, like skin tone discrimination, for white ethnic and Latina/o plaintiffs, but not for black plaintiffs. The inability of courts to fashion coherent approaches to colorism claims involving black claimants …
The Verdict On Roberts V. Texaco, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
The Verdict On Roberts V. Texaco, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Faculty Scholarship
When I first heard that Bari-Ellen Roberts had written a book about the race discrimination lawsuit against Texaco, I was ecstatic. I was eager to read about the legal strategies that had resulted in the highest settlement award ever given in a class action race discrimination lawsuit. After reading the first few pages of the book, however, I became somewhat disappointed. The first few chapters made it clear that Roberts's book was not about the actual details of the class action lawsuit against Texaco but about Roberts's personal experiences at home, in school, and in the corporate world. As I …