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Labor and Employment Law

Employment discrimination

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Full-Text Articles in Law

In Defense Of Mcdonnell Douglas: The Domination Of Title Vii By The At-Will Employment Doctrine, Chuck Henson Oct 2015

In Defense Of Mcdonnell Douglas: The Domination Of Title Vii By The At-Will Employment Doctrine, Chuck Henson

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to describe the actual relationship between the Doctrine and Title VII as implemented in the Court's disparate treatment decisions. Title VII and the Doctrine are not separate forces warring with each other. The at-will employment doctrine guided the Court's Title VII disparate treatment jurisprudence, giving the maximum possible latitude to employers because that was the Eighty-eighth Congress's intent.


Against Immutability, Jessica A. Clarke Jan 2015

Against Immutability, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Courts often hold that antidiscrimination law protects “immutable” characteristics, like sex and race. In a series of recent cases, gay rights advocates have persuaded courts to expand the concept of immutability to include not just those traits an individual cannot change, but also those considered too important for anyone to be asked to change. Sexual orientation and religion are paradigmatic examples. This Article critically examines this new concept of immutability, asking whether it is fundamentally different from the old one and how it might apply to characteristics on the borders of employment discrimination law’s protection, such as obesity, pregnancy, and …


Fifty Years After The Passage Of Title Vii: Is It Time For The Government To Use The Bully Pulpit To Enact A Status-Blind Harassment Statute, Marcia Narine Jan 2015

Fifty Years After The Passage Of Title Vii: Is It Time For The Government To Use The Bully Pulpit To Enact A Status-Blind Harassment Statute, Marcia Narine

Articles

No abstract provided.


Introduction To Amici Curiae Brief In Young V. United Parcel Service, Inc., Joanna L. Grossman, Deborah L. Brake Jan 2015

Introduction To Amici Curiae Brief In Young V. United Parcel Service, Inc., Joanna L. Grossman, Deborah L. Brake

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

On March 25, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., the most important pregnancy discrimination case before the Court in nearly a quarter century. The Court ruled for Peggy Young in a decision that will chart the path of pregnancy discrimination litigation for years to come. Our brief, published here with a short introduction, lays out our theory for why an employer’s refusal to accommodate pregnancy with light-duty assignments on the same terms as other medical conditions similarly affecting work violates Title VII and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The brief was …


My Coworker, My Enemy: Solidarity, Workplace Control, And The Class Politics Of Title Vii, Ahmed A. White Jan 2015

My Coworker, My Enemy: Solidarity, Workplace Control, And The Class Politics Of Title Vii, Ahmed A. White

Publications

No abstract provided.


On Not 'Having It Both Ways' And Still Losing: Reflections On Fifty Years Of Pregnancy Litigation Under Title Vii, Deborah L. Brake Jan 2015

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 …


Reconsidering Legal Regulation Of Race, Sex, And Sexual Orientation, Ann C. Mcginley Jan 2015

Reconsidering Legal Regulation Of Race, Sex, And Sexual Orientation, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.


Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss Jan 2015

Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court case that held that policies that disproportionately harm minority employees can violate federal employment discrimination law even without evidence of “intentional” discrimination, recently turned forty. Griggs is generally celebrated as a landmark decision, but disparate impact’s current relevance (and its constitutionality) is hotly debated. Robert Belton’s The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace offers a rich and detailed history of the strategic choices that led to the plaintiffs’ victory in Griggs. This Review uses Belton’s history as a jumping off point to consider the contemporary importance of disparate impact in efforts to challenge …


Getting To Know Fred, Dr. Emily Sanchez Salcedo Dec 2014

Getting To Know Fred, Dr. Emily Sanchez Salcedo

Center for Business Research and Development

Family responsibilities discrimination (FReD) is a novel concept in the Philippine workplace. It is novel not because it is a new occurrence but because societal awareness is a fairly recent phenomenon following its unprecedented surge in popularity in the United States that began with the publication of the book, “Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It” in 2000 by Professor Joan C. Williams.


Rights In Recession: Toward Administrative Antidiscrimination Law, Stephanie Bornstein Oct 2014

Rights In Recession: Toward Administrative Antidiscrimination Law, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article documents how, over the past six years and coinciding with the “Great Recession of 2008,” both public and private antidiscrimination enforcement mechanisms have become increasingly constrained, such that the ability to enforce the mandate of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - the main federal law prohibiting employment discrimination - may be facing a crisis point. While enforcement mechanisms for federal antidiscrimination law have long left room for improvement, recent developments in the economy, due to the 2008 recession, and in federal case law, due to a series of procedural decisions by the Roberts Court, …


A Reasonable Belief: In Support Of Lgbt Plaintiffs' Title Vii Retaliation Claims, Erin E. Buzuvis Jan 2014

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 …


Clothes Don't Make The Man (Or Woman), But Gender Identity Might, Jennifer Levi Jan 2014

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 Diamond In The Rough: Trans-Substantivity Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure And Its Detrimental Impact On Civil Rights, Suzette Malveaux Jan 2014

A Diamond In The Rough: Trans-Substantivity Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure And Its Detrimental Impact On Civil Rights, Suzette Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.


The Use And Misuse Of Econometric Evidence In Employment Discrimination Cases, Joni Hersch, Blair Druhan Bullock Jan 2014

The Use And Misuse Of Econometric Evidence In Employment Discrimination Cases, Joni Hersch, Blair Druhan Bullock

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Experts routinely criticize three aspects of regression analyses presented by the opposing party in employment discrimination cases: omitted explanatory variables, sample size, and statistical significance. However, these factors affect the reliability of the regression results only in very limited circumstances. As a result, valid regression analyses do not provide the critical guidance that they should in employment discrimination cases. Our own statistical analyses of seventy-eight Title VII employment discrimination cases find that merely raising these critiques, even if spurious, reduces plaintiffs’ likelihood of prevailing at trial. We propose that courts adopt a peer-review system in which court-appointed economists, compensated by …


The Many Lanes Out Of Court: Privatization Of Employment Discrimination Disputes, Theresa M. Beiner Jan 2014

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 Jan 2014

The Trouble With Torgerson: The Latest Effort To Summarily Adjudicate Employment Discrimination Cases, Theresa M. Beiner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Retaliation In An Eeo World,, Deborah L. Brake Jan 2014

Retaliation In An Eeo World,, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

This Article examines how the prevalence of internal policies and complaint procedures for addressing discrimination in the workplace are affecting legal protections from retaliation. Retaliation has been an unusually active field of law lately. The Supreme Court’s heightened interest in taking retaliation cases in recent years has highlighted the central importance of retaliation protections to the integrity of discrimination law. The Court’s string of plaintiff victories in retaliation cases has earned it the reputation as a pragmatic, pro-employee Court when it comes to retaliation law. However, this view does not account for the proliferation and influence of employer EEO policies …


Tortifying Retaliation: Protected Activity At The Intersection Of Fault, Duty, And Causation, Deborah L. Brake Jan 2014

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 …


Introduction To The Workplace Constitution From The New Deal To The New Right, Sophia Z. Lee Jan 2014

Introduction To The Workplace Constitution From The New Deal To The New Right, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Today, most American workers do not have constitutional rights on the job. As The Workplace Constitution shows, this outcome was far from inevitable. Instead, American workers have a long history of fighting for such rights. Beginning in the 1930s, civil rights advocates sought constitutional protections against racial discrimination by employers and unions. At the same time, a conservative right-to-work movement argued that the Constitution protected workers from having to join or support unions. Those two movements, with their shared aim of extending constitutional protections to American workers, were a potentially powerful combination. But they sought to use those protections to …


The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission And Structural Reform Of The American Workplace, Margo Schlanger, Pauline T. Kim Jan 2014

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission And Structural Reform Of The American Workplace, Margo Schlanger, Pauline T. Kim

Articles

In one of its most-watched recent cases, the United States Supreme Court struck down a class action alleging that Wal-Mart stores discriminated against female employees in pay and promotion decisions. The plaintiffs alleged that Wal-Mart’s corporate culture and highly discretionary decision-making practices led to sex discrimination on a company-wide basis, and they sought injunctive relief as well as backpay for individual employees. Reversing the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court held in Wal-Mart v. Dukes that the proposed class failed to meet the requirements for class action certification under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of …


Fakers And Floodgates, Sandra F. Sperino Jan 2014

Fakers And Floodgates, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

There has always been the possibility of judicial skepticism about employment discrimination claims. Recently, the Supreme Court made this skepticism explicit. In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the Supreme Court expressed concern about fake claims and floodgates of litigation. It then used these arguments to tip the substantive law against retaliation claims. This article responds to this explicit skepticism about discrimination claims. First, it shows that the Court created reasons to limit retaliation claims that are not tied to congressional intent. Second, the factual claims that the Court makes are not grounded in evidence, and available information …


At The Tipping Point: Race And Gender Discrimination In A Common Economic Transaction, Lu-In Wang Jan 2014

At The Tipping Point: Race And Gender Discrimination In A Common Economic Transaction, Lu-In Wang

Articles

This Article examines the ubiquitous, multibillion dollar practice of tipping as a vehicle for race and gender discrimination by both customers and servers and as a case study of the role that organizations play in producing and promoting unequal treatment. The unique structure of tipped service encounters provides plenty of opportunities and incentives for the two parties to discriminate against one another. Neither customers nor servers are likely to find legal redress for the kinds of discrimination that are most likely to occur in tipped service transactions, however, because many of the same features of the transaction that promote discrimination …


Work Wives, Laura A. Rosenbury Jul 2013

Work Wives, Laura A. Rosenbury

UF Law Faculty Publications

Traditional notions of male and female roles remain tenacious at home and work even in the face of gender-neutral family laws and robust employment discrimination laws. This Article analyzes the challenge of gender tenacity through the lens of the “work wife.” The continued use of the marriage metaphor at work reveals that the dynamics of marriage flow between home and work, creating a feedback loop that inserts gender into both domains in multiple ways. This phenomenon may reinforce gender stereotypes, hindering the potential of law to achieve gender equality. But such gender tenacity need not always lead to subordination. The …


Marital Status And Privilege, Laura A. Rosenbury Jul 2013

Marital Status And Privilege, Laura A. Rosenbury

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay challenges the privilege attaching to marriage as a distinct form of relationship. Responding to Angela Onwuachi-Willig’s new book, According to Our Hearts: Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and the Law of the Multiracial Family, the essay identifies the legal and extralegal privileges flowing not just to monoracial marriage but to marriage. States recognize and support one form of relationship between adults to the exclusion of all others, creating privilege that flows outside of the home into the workplace and beyond. Instead of arguing that such privilege should be distributed more equally between monoracial and multiracial couples, this essay seeks …


The Uncertain Impact Of Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Michael Harper Apr 2013

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 …


Intellectual Property And Employee Selection, Elizabeth A. Rowe Apr 2013

Intellectual Property And Employee Selection, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

In today’s marketplace, companies from Disney to Hooters are increasingly integrating their image into the service that they provide. This has come to be known as “branded service.” The human wearing the trade dress merges with the brand image. When a company chooses this strategy to differentiate itself from its competitors in the marketplace, it will often incorporate some intellectual property, and the result then necessarily influences hiring decisions. If a business decides not to hire a prospective employee because she does not fit the company’s image, and that decision is challenged under the antidiscrimination laws, to what extent should …


Teaching The Post-Sex Generation, Kerri Lynn Stone Jan 2013

Teaching The Post-Sex Generation, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

There is a trend that I have observed in the course of leading my classes in discussions about the kinds of behavior that may constitute unlawful discrimination: the emergence of an attitude among students that society is simply “post-sex,” or no longer in need of most or all anti-sex discrimination jurisprudence. This Article details my own approach to teaching and to raising and conducting discussions about how anti-discrimination legislation and jurisprudence works in theory, in practice, and how it would/could work in an ideal world. I enjoy teaching students with a diversity of viewpoints. However, when I began to encounter …


(In)Competence In Appellate And District Court Brief Writing On Rule 12 And 56 Motions, Scott A. Moss Jan 2013

(In)Competence In Appellate And District Court Brief Writing On Rule 12 And 56 Motions, Scott A. Moss

Publications

No abstract provided.


Cognitive Illiberalism, Summary Judgement, And Title Vii: An Examination Of Ricci V. Destefano, Ann C. Mcginley Jan 2013

Cognitive Illiberalism, Summary Judgement, And Title Vii: An Examination Of Ricci V. Destefano, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.


Gilbert Redux: The Interaction Of The Pregnancy Discrimination Act And The Amended Americans With Disabilities Act, Deborah Widiss Jan 2013

Gilbert Redux: The Interaction Of The Pregnancy Discrimination Act And The Amended Americans With Disabilities Act, Deborah Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Pregnancy — a health condition that only affects women — raises complicated questions regarding the interaction of employment policies addressing sex discrimination and those addressing disability. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), enacted in 1978, mandates that employers “shall” treat pregnant employees “the same for all employment-related purposes” as other employees “similar in their ability or inability to work.” Despite the clarity of this language, some courts permit employers to treat pregnant employees less favorably than employees with other health conditions, so long as the employer does so pursuant to a “pregnancy-blind” policy such as accommodating only workplace injuries or disabilities …