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Full-Text Articles in Law
Coworker Retaliation In The #Metoo Era, Deborah Brake
Coworker Retaliation In The #Metoo Era, Deborah Brake
Articles
The national firestorm sparked by #MeToo has galvanized feminist legal scholars to reconsider the Title VII framework governing workplace sexual harassment and the potential for #MeToo to transform workplace culture in a way that Title VII, to date, has not. In the analysis of #MeToo’s prospects for change, less attention has been paid to how Title VII’s protection from retaliation intersects with the movement. One particular aspect of retaliation law – coworker retaliation – has thus far escaped the attention of legal scholars. Already underdeveloped as a species of retaliation law, coworker retaliation holds particular resonance for the #MeToo movement …
On Not 'Having It Both Ways' And Still Losing: Reflections On Fifty Years Of Pregnancy Litigation Under Title Vii, Deborah L. Brake
On Not 'Having It Both Ways' And Still Losing: Reflections On Fifty Years Of Pregnancy Litigation Under Title Vii, Deborah L. Brake
Articles
This article, published in the B.U. Law Review Symposium issue, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 50: Past, Present and Future,” reflects on the past fifty years of conflict and struggle over how to treat pregnancy discrimination under Title VII. Pregnancy has played a pivotal role in debates among feminist legal scholars and women’s rights advocates about the limitations of both the equal treatment and special treatment anti-discrimination frameworks. The article’s title references the much-discussed Wendy W. Williams cautionary note that if we cannot have it “both ways” we need to decide which way we want to have it …
Retaliation In The Eeo Office, Deborah L. Brake
Retaliation In The Eeo Office, Deborah L. Brake
Articles
This Article examines a new and as-yet unexplored development in retaliation law under Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes: the denial of protection from retaliation to the class of employees charged with enforcing their employers’ internal anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures. Through distinctive applications of traditional retaliation doctrine and newer rules formulated specifically for this class of employees, these workers are increasingly vulnerable to unchecked retaliation by their employers. This troubling trend has important implications for workplace retaliation law and for employment discrimination law more broadly. This Article makes two contributions to legal scholarship. First, it traces the legal doctrines …
Formalism And Employer Liability Under Title Vii, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Formalism And Employer Liability Under Title Vii, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Articles
Most lawyers, law professors, and judges are familiar with two standard critiques of formalism in legal reasoning. One is the unacknowledged-policymaking critique. This critique argues that formalist reasoning purports to be above judicial policymaking but instead simply hides the policy decisions offstage. The other is the false-determinacy critique. This critique observes that formalist reasoning purports to reduce decision costs in the run of cases by sorting cases into defined categories, but argues that instead of going away the difficult questions of application migrate to the choice of the category in which to place a particular case.
Tortifying Retaliation: Protected Activity At The Intersection Of Fault, Duty, And Causation, Deborah L. Brake
Tortifying Retaliation: Protected Activity At The Intersection Of Fault, Duty, And Causation, Deborah L. Brake
Articles
In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the Supreme Court broke its string of plaintiff victories in the eight retaliation cases it has decided since 2005. In its 2013 decision in that case, the Court rejected a mixed motive framework for Title VII’s retaliation provision, a part of the statute that Congress did not amend in 1991 when it adopted the motivating factor standard for proving discrimination under Title VII. For help construing what “because of” means in the retaliation claim, the Court looked to tort law, which it read as requiring plaintiffs to prove but-for causation …
Undocumented Workers And Concepts Of Fault: Are Courts Engaged In Legitimate Decisionmaking, Christine N. Cimini
Undocumented Workers And Concepts Of Fault: Are Courts Engaged In Legitimate Decisionmaking, Christine N. Cimini
Articles
This Article examines judicial decisionmaking in labor and employment cases involving undocumented workers. Labor and employment laws, designed to protect all workers regardless of immigration status, often conflict with immigration laws designed to deter the employment of undocumented workers. In the absence of clarity as to how these differing policy priorities should interact, courts are left to resolve the conflict. While existing case law appears to lack coherence, this Article identifies a uniform judicial reliance upon “fault-based” factors. This Article offers a structure to understand this developing body of law and evaluates the legitimacy of the fault-based decisionmaking modalities utilized …
The Missing Minority Judges, Pat K. Chew, Luke T. Kelley-Chew
The Missing Minority Judges, Pat K. Chew, Luke T. Kelley-Chew
Articles
This essay documents the lack of Asian-American judges and considers the consequences.
The Failure Of Title Vii As A Rights-Claiming System, Deborah Brake, Joanna L. Grossman
The Failure Of Title Vii As A Rights-Claiming System, Deborah Brake, Joanna L. Grossman
Articles
This Article takes a comprehensive look at the failure of Title VII as a system for claiming nondiscrimination rights. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007), requiring an employee to assert a Title VII pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when the discriminatory pay decision was first made, marks the tip of the iceberg in this flawed system. In the past decade, Title VII doctrines at both ends of the rights-claiming process have become increasing hostile to employees. At the front end, Title VII imposes strict requirements on …
What Counts As 'Discrimination' In Ledbetter And The Implications For Sex Equality Law, Deborah L. Brake
What Counts As 'Discrimination' In Ledbetter And The Implications For Sex Equality Law, Deborah L. Brake
Articles
This article, presented at a Symposium, The Roberts Court and Equal Protection: Gender, Race and Class held at the University of South Carolina School of Law in the Spring of 2008, explores the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for sex equality law more broadly, including equal protection. There is more interrelation between statutory and constitutional equality law as a source of discrimination protections than is generally acknowledged. Although the Ledbetter decision purports to be a narrow procedural ruling regarding the statute of limitations for Title VII pay discrimination claims, at its …
Ask, Don’T Tell: Ethical Issues Surrounding Undocumented Workers’ Status In Employment Litigation, Christine N. Cimini
Ask, Don’T Tell: Ethical Issues Surrounding Undocumented Workers’ Status In Employment Litigation, Christine N. Cimini
Articles
The presence of an estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, of which an estimated 7.2 million are working, has become a flashpoint in the emerging national debate about immigration. Given these statistics, it is not surprising that many undocumented workers suffer injuries in the workplace that are typically legally cognizable. Even though undocumented workers are entitled to a number of legal remedies related to their employment, seeking legal relief often raises heightened concerns about the disclosure of their status. This article explores lawyers' increasingly complex ethical obligations with regard to a client's immigration status in the context …
Affirmative Action: Hypocritical Euphemism Or Noble Mandate?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Affirmative Action: Hypocritical Euphemism Or Noble Mandate?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was adopted in an atmosphere of monumental naivete. Congress apparently believed that equal employment opportunity could be achieved simply by forbidding employers or unions to "discriminate" on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," and expressly disavowed any intention to require "preferential treatment." Perhaps animated by the Supreme Court's stirring desegregation decisions of the 1950's, the proponents of civil rights legislation made "color-blindness" the rallying cry of the hour. Today we know better. The dreary statistics, so familiar to anyone who works in this field, tell the story. …
Litigation Versus Mediation Under Title Vii Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Litigation Versus Mediation Under Title Vii Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Report of the 1969 Proceedings of the Section of Labor Relations Law, American Bar Association.