Law Commons^™

Hair Me Out: Why Discrimination Against Black Hair Is Race Discrimination Under Title Vii, Alexis Boyd

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In May 2010, Chastity Jones sought employment as a customer service representative at Catastrophe Management Solutions (“CMS”), a claims processing company located in Mobile, Alabama. When asked for an inperson interview, Jones, a Black woman, arrived in a suit and her hair in “short dreadlocks,” or locs, a type of natural hairstyle common in the Black community. Despite being qualified for the position, Jones would later have her offer rescinded because of her hair. CMS claimed that locs “tend to get messy” and violated the “neutral” dress code and hair policy requiring employees to be “professional and business-like.” Therefore, CMS …

Unlocking The Beauty From Within Title Vii: Arguing For An Expansive Interpretation Of Title Vii To Protect Against Attractiveness Discrimination, Michael Conklin

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Beauty may only be skin deep, but discrimination against the unattractive runs far deeper. Research emphatically demonstrates that attractiveness discrimination affects nearly every aspect of life, including hiring and promotion decisions. For example, personal injury attorneys utilize economists as expert witnesses for how their clients’ reduced attractiveness will negatively affect their future earnings. Attractiveness discrimination is just as prevalent as discrimination based on ethnicity. Unfortunately, current interpretations of federal antidiscrimination legislation do not offer protections from attractiveness discrimination. This Article offers a comprehensive framework for providing such protections under an expansive interpretation of Title VII.

The Bumble Bill: A Critical Analysis On Texas’S New Law Taking Indecent Exposure Regulations Online, Ashley B. Huron

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Employment Discrimination And The Domino Effect, Laura T. Kessler

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Employment discrimination is a multidimensional problem. In many instances, some combination of employer bias, the organization of work, and employees’ responses to these conditions, leads to worker inequality. Title VII does not sufficiently account for these dynamics in two significant respects. First, Title VII’s major proof structures divide employment discrimination into discrete categories, for example, disparate treatment, disparate impact, and sexual harassment. This compartmentalization does not account for the fact that protected employees often concurrently experience more than one form of discriminatory exclusion. The various types of exclusion often add up to significant inequalities, even though seemingly insignificant when considered …

Harassing Speech In The Public Schools: The Validity Of Schools' Regulation Of Fighting Words And The Consequences If They Do Not, Adam A. Milani

Akron Law Review

What can - and should - schools do about the harassment which their students are suffering? While the issues of hateful and harassing speech and political correctness on college campuses have received a great deal of attention in both the mass media and legal journals, the very real problem of student-to-student harassment in grammar and high schools has only recently been given attention in either forum. More specifically, there has been little attention paid to the questions of whether (1) the First Amendment permits grammar and high schools to control harassing speech by students, (2) schools violate civil rights statutes …

An Introduction To The Women In Law Symposium, Tracy Thomas

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

This collected symposium gives context and definition to these continuing problems of sex discrimination. The included articles pull back the curtain to provide examples of how and why sex discrimination still exists. The articles go deeper, fleshing out persistent notions of gender as subordinate, exploring the public perception of gender in appearance of femininity and masculinity. They illustrate the tangible legal results of these gendered notions to legal issues as varied as forced sterilization of the mentally disabled, equal employment, or the criminalization of prostitution.

Ncaa Athletes, Unpaid Interns And The S-Word: Exploring The Rhetorical Impact Of The Language Of Slavery, Maria Ontiveros

Maria L. Ontiveros

Street Harassment And The Informal Ghettoization Of Women, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cynthia Grant Bowman

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis Of Unconscious And Institutional Discrimination In The United States And Britain, Leland Ware

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Sins Of Hosanna-Tabor, Leslie Griffin

Indiana Law Journal

The Supreme Court has lost sight of individual religious freedom. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, the Court for the first time recognized the ministerial exception, a court-created doctrine that holds that the First Amendment requires the dismissal of many employment discrimination cases against religious employers. The Court ruled unanimously that Cheryl Perich, an elementary school teacher who was fired after she tried to return to school from disability leave, could not pursue an antidiscrimination lawsuit against her employer.

This Article criticizes Hosanna-Tabor as a profound misinterpretation of the First Amendment. The Court mistakenly protected religious institutions’ …

Warriors, Machismo, And Jockstraps: Sexually Exploitative Athletic Hazing And Title Ix In The Public School Locker Room, Susan P. Stuart

Law Faculty Publications

Sexually exploitative athletic hazing on boys’ athletic teams is an increasingly frequent feature in the news. The physical and psychological abuse of younger team members by those who are more senior is not just humiliating but dangerous. Indeed, some athletes are charged with crimes that are committed during hazing activities. More to the point, the features of sexually exploitative hazing have all the earmarks of sexual harassment when team leaders use sexual assaults to keep younger members in their place by feminizing them or otherwise challenging their ability to conform to a hegemonic masculine sports stereotype. Athletic hazing’s part in …

Warriors, Machismo, And Jockstraps: Sexually Exploitative Athletic Hazing And Title Ix In The Public School Locker Room, Susan P. Stuart

Susan P. Stuart

Sexually exploitative athletic hazing on boys’ athletic teams is an increasingly frequent feature in the news. The physical and psychological abuse of younger team members by those who are more senior is not just humiliating but dangerous. Indeed, some athletes are charged with crimes that are committed during hazing activities. More to the point, the features of sexually exploitative hazing have all the earmarks of sexual harassment when team leaders use sexual assaults to keep younger members in their place by feminizing them or otherwise challenging their ability to conform to a hegemonic masculine sports stereotype. Athletic hazing’s part in …

Limiting The Affirmative Defense In The Digital Workplace , Daniel B. Garrie

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

From 2009 to 2011, there were more than 30,000 sexual harassment claims filed in the United States. The ubiquitous availability of digital technology devices has facilitated many instances of sexual harassment. Such sexual harassment occurs through unprovoked and offensive e-mails, messages posted on electronic bulletin boards, and other means available on the Internet. To date, courts remain silent on this issue. Should this type of sexual harassment be treated differently from physical sexual harassment? The surprising answer is yes. This Article suggests a new judicial framework for addressing sexual harassment perpetrated through digital communications. This framework accounts for the real-world …

Employment Discrimination: Recent Developments In The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law, 1993-1994 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The 2001 Term Of The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Fourteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The 2000 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Regulating Cyberharassment: Some Thoughts On Sexual Harassment 2.0, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Emerging First Amendment Law Of Managerial Prerogative, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court, by the narrowest of margins, held that allegations of police perjury made in memoranda to his superiors by Richard Ceballos, a supervisory prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, were unprotected by the First Amendment because “his expressions were made pursuant to his duties. . . .” The academic reaction to this holding has been harshly negative; scholars argue that the holding will prevent the public from learning of governmental misconduct that is known only to those working within the bowels of the government itself.

This article rejects the scholarly consensus …

Exercises In The Regulation Of Hate Speech, Rodney A. Smolla

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Harassment Of Female Farmworkers - Can The Legal System Help?, Maria Ontiveros

Maria L. Ontiveros

This paper provides an in depth and highly textured description of "sexual harassment" as experienced by female farmworkers in California. It explains how the harassment is affected by the extremity of the consequences she faces if she does not comply with the harassment; the structural difficulties in the reporting of and response to these incidents of sexual harassment; the sexualization of migrant women; the cultural factors that influence the harassment; and the fluidity of her workplace. It then critiques both current legal doctrine and current feminist theories of sexual harassment as inadequate to address these workers' concerns. It suggests an …

“Actions As Words, Words As Actions: Sexual Harassment Law, The First Amendment And Verbal Acts, John F. Wirenius

ExpressO

The article examines the tension between the hostile work environment under the civil rights laws and the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, even when such speech is offensive and even discriminatory. After discussing the tension and its limits, the author examines other rationales proposed to resolve this tension, and rejecting them as unsatisfactory. Noting that hostile work environment doctrine, as a variable standard, employs a less “bright-line” approach than is typical of the First Amendment’s rule, the author nonetheless finds that the “open texture” of all rules, and the requirement that a hostile work environment be systematically pervasive or …

Miller V. Department Of Corrections: The Application Of Title Vii To Consensual, Indirect Employer Conduct, Stephen Dacus

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Freeing Racial Harassment From The Sexual Harassment Model, Pat K. Chew

Articles

Judges, academics, and lawyers alike base their legal analyses of workplace racial harassment on the sexual harassment model. Legal principles derived from sexual harassment jurisprudence are presumed to be equally appropriate for racial harassment cases. The implicit assumption is that the social harms and public policy goals of racial harassment and sexual harassment are sufficiently similar to justify analogous scrutiny and remedies. Parties to racial harassment cases cite the reasoning and elements of sexual harassment cases without hesitation, as if racial harassment and sexual harassment are behaviorally and legally indistinguishable.

This Article, however, questions the assumption that there should be …

Unwrapping Racial Harassment Law, Pat K. Chew

Articles

This article is based on a pioneering empirical study of racial harassment in the workplace in which we statistically analyze federal court opinions from 1976 to 2002. Part I offers an overview of racial harassment law and research, noting its common origin with and its close dependence upon sexual harassment legal jurisprudence. In order to put the study's analysis in context, Part I describes the dispute resolution process from which racial harassment cases arise.

Parts II and III present a clear picture of how racial harassment law has played out in the courts - who are the plaintiffs and defendants, …

Parsing The Meaning Of "Adverse Employment Action" In Title Vii Disparate Treatment, Sexual Harassment, And Retaliation Claims: What Should Be Actionable Wrongdoing?, Rosalie Berger Levinson

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The 2001 Term Of The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Fourteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The 2000 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Peer Harassment--Interference With An Equal Educational Opportunity In Elementary And Secondary Schools, Ivan E. Bodensteiner

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court's 1997 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination: Recent Developments In The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law, 1993-1994 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.