Law and Race Commons^™

Climate Discrimination, Duane Rudolph

Catholic University Law Review

This Article focuses on the coming legal plight of workers in the United States, who will likely face discrimination as they search for work outside their home states. The Article takes for granted that climate change will have forced those workers across state and international boundaries, a reality dramatically witnessed in the United States during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. During that environmental emergency (and the devastation it wrought), workers were forced across boundaries only to be violently discriminated against upon arrival in their new domiciles. Such discrimination is likely to recur, and it will threaten the livelihoods of …

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 Despite being qualified for the position, Jones would later have her offer rescinded because of her hair.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 …

Panel 5 - The Future Of Employment Law, Karla Gilbride, Geraldine Sumter, Stephen Rich, Marcia Mccormick, Michael Selmi

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

FACILITATOR: All right everyone, welcome to our last panel, “The Future of Employment Law.” I want to quickly introduce our moderator, Karla Gilbride, the co-director of the Access to Justice Project. Karla, you can take it away.

Hidden Figures: Wage Inequity And Economic Insecurity For Black Women And Other Women Of Color, Cassandra Jones Havard

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

One hundred years after women secured the right to vote, wage inequality remains prevalent in the United States. The gender wage gap, or pay inequity based solely on sex, arguably, is a measure of the current failure of full and equal participation by women in American society. The gender wage gap exists despite federal legislation designed to further wage equality. In fact, a difference as small as two cents over a lifetime costs a woman approximately $80,000. Currently, it is predicted that for a majority of white women, the pay parity will be attained between 2059–2069. However, Black women …

Transparency And Reliance In Antidiscrimination Law, Steven L. Willborn

Catholic University Law Review

All antidiscrimination laws have two structural features – transparency and reliance – that are important, even central, to their design, but have gone largely unnoticed. On transparency, some laws, like the recent salary-ban laws, attempt to prevent the employer from learning about the disfavored factor on the theory that an employer cannot rely on an unknown factor. Other laws require publication of the disfavored factor, such as salary, on the theory that it is harder to discriminate in the sunlight. Still other laws are somewhere between these two extremes. The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, limits but does not …

Can I Touch Your Hair?: Business Diversity, Slavery, Disparate Outcomes, And The Crown Act, Ashley Jones

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This comment will begin by looking at why hair in the United States is related to issues of race. This comment will then look at how businesses’ rules for appearance and hair disproportionately affect Black employees. Next, this paper will look at Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to point out how the vague language has created loopholes, which allow businesses to lawfully discriminate against people with natural hair. We will then move to explore what role some city and state governments have had in creating natural hair-safe workspaces for employees in their respective boundaries. Lastly, we …

Cause For Concern Or Cause For Celebration?: Did Bostock V. Clayton County Establish A New Mixed Motive Theory For Title Vii Case And Make It Easier For Plaintiffs To Prove Discrimination Claims?, Terrence Cain

Seattle University Law Review

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee “because of” race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This seems simple enough, but if an employer makes an adverse employment decision partly for an impermissible reason and partly for a permissible reason, i.e., if the employer acts with a mixed motive, has the employer acted “because of” the impermissible reason? According to Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the answer is no. The Courts in Gross and Nassar held …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Does U.S. Federal Employment Law Now Cover Caste Discrimination Based On Untouchability?: If All Else Fails There Is The Possible Application Of Bostock V. Clayton County, Kevin D. Brown, Lalit Khandare, Annapurna Waughray, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Theodore M. Shaw

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article discusses the issue of whether a victim of caste discrimination based on untouchability can assert a claim of intentional employment discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981. This article contends that there are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is a form of religious discrimination under Title VII. The question of whether caste discrimination is a form of race or national origin discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981 depends upon how the courts apply these definitions to caste discrimination based on untouchability. There are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is recognized within the concept …

Maternity Rights: A Comparative View Of Mexico And The United States, Roberto Rosas

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Women play a large role in the workplace and require additional protection during pregnancy, childbirth, and while raising children. This article compares how Mexico and the United States have approached the issue of maternity rights and benefits. First, Mexico provides eighty-four days of paid leave to mothers, while the United States provides unpaid leave for up to twelve weeks. Second, Mexico allows two thirty-minute breaks a day for breastfeeding, while the United States allows a reasonable amount of time per day to breastfeed. Third, Mexico provides childcare to most federal employees, while the United States provides daycares to a small …

Undocumented Domestic Workers: A Penumbra In The Workforce, Abigail A. Roman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Modernizing Discrimination Law: The Adoption Of An Intersectional Lens, Marisa K. Sanchez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Employer Liability For Sex Harassment Through The Lens Of Restorative Justice, Emily Rees

Cleveland State Law Review

Title VII cases alleging sex harassment have become almost completely deferential to employers who have anti-harassment policies. In this Note, I discuss legal and sociological influences on this development and propose using restorative justice focused mediation to avoid rendering Title VII entirely ineffective. Mediation should only be compelled as a remedy—after a court finds that harassment occurred, but that the plaintiff cannot prove her employer knew about the harassment. Instead of dismissing these cases—where judges have already found illegal discrimination—some corrective action should be imposed on the employer for its failure to maintain a harassment-free workplace. Focusing mediation on principles …

Wearing My Crown To Work: The Crown Act As A Solution To Shortcomings Of Title Vii For Hair Discrimination In The Workplace, Margaret Goodman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pursuing Diversity: From Education To Employment, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

A central pillar of the Supreme Court’s educational affirmative-action jurisprudence is that the pedagogical benefits of being educated with students from diverse backgrounds are sufficiently “compelling” to justify some degree of race-conscious selection in university admissions.

This essay argues that the blanket permission to advance educational diversity, defensible or not, should not be extended to employment. The purpose of the workplace is not pedagogical. Rather, employees are hired and paid to do a job, deliver a service, produce a product, and complete specified tasks efficiently and effectively. Whether race-conscious practices for the purpose of creating a more diverse workforce will …

Back To The Drawing Board! Legislating Hollywood, Christina Shu Jien Chong

Georgia State University Law Review

The United States Department of Justice “contended that equal employment opportunity in the broadcast industry could ‘contribute significantly toward reducing . . . discrimination in other industries’ because of the ‘enormous impact . . . television . . . [has] upon American life.’” Courts have also recognized that “communities . . . ’[must] take an active interest in the . . . quality of [television programming because television] has a vast impact on their lives and the lives of their children.’” Unfortunately, Hollywood continues to promote an insular culture that excludes minorities from influential behind-the-camera and on-screen positions.

Although the …

Equal Protection And The Social Sciences Thirty Years After Mccleskey V. Kemp, Destiny Peery, Osagie K. Obasogie

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equal Work, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Most Americans have heard of the gender pay gap and the statistic that, today, women earn on average eighty cents to every dollar men earn. Far less discussed, there is an even greater racial pay gap. Black and Latino men average only seventy-one cents to the dollar of white men. Compounding these gaps is the “polluting” impact of status characteristics on pay: as women and racial minorities enter occupations formerly dominated by white men, the pay for those occupations goes down. Improvement in the gender pay gap has been stalled for nearly two decades; the racial pay gap is actually …

Derivative Racial Discrimination, Kevin Woodson

Law Faculty Publications

This Article introduces the concept of derivative racial discrimination, a process of institutional discrimination in which certain social and cultural dynamics impede the careers of minority workers in predominantly white firms even in the absence of racial biases and stereotypes. Derivative racial discrimination is a manifestation of cultural homophily, the universal tendency of people to gravitate toward others with similar cultural interests and backgrounds. Although not intrinsically racial, cultural homophily disadvantages minority workers in predominantly white work settings due to various race-related social and cultural differences. Seemingly inconsequential in isolation, these differences produce racial disparities in the accrual of valuable …

Rethinking Employment Discrimination Harms, Jessica Roberts

Indiana Law Journal

Establishing harm is essential to many legal claims. This Article urges the law to adopt a more expansive notion of the harms of employment discrimination to better reflect the cognitive functions of individuals who face discrimination. While the effect of implicit bias on the mental state of potential discriminators is well-worn territory in antidiscrimination scholarship, little has been written about a sister theory: stereotype threat. More than a decade’s worth of social psychology research indicates that when a person is conscious of her membership in a particular group and the group is the subject of a widely recognized stereotype, that …

Affirmative Action: Alive And Well After Stotts, Ralph J. Conrad

Akron Law Review

This comment examines the current state of affirmative action in light of the special protection that the Supreme Court grants seniority systems. This comment also discusses the future of affirmative action and how the changes in affirmative action will affect collective bargaining agreements and consent decrees.

A Nation Of Widening Opportunities: The Civil Rights Act At 50, Ellen D. Katz, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Books

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an extraordinary achievement of law, politics, and human rights. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Act's passage, it is appropriate to reflect on the successes and failures of the civil rights project reflected in the statute, as well as on its future directions. This volume represents an attempt to assess the Civil Rights Act's legacy.

On October 11, 2013, a diverse group of civil rights scholars met at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor to assess the interpretation, development, and administration of civil rights law in the five decades since …

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.

Leveraging Antidiscrimination, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 turns fifty, antidiscrimination law has become unfashionable. Civil rights strategies are posited as not up to the serious task of addressing contemporary problems of inequality such as improving mobility for low-wage workers or providing access into entry-level employment. This Article argues that there is a danger in casting aside the Civil Rights Act as one charts new courses to address inequality. This Article revisits the implementation strategies that emerged in the first decade of the Act to reveal that the Act was not limited to addressing formal discrimination or bias, but rather drew …

Race Inequity Fifty Years Later: Language Rights Under The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Jasmine Gonzales Rose

Faculty Scholarship

As Latinos have become the largest racialized minority in the United States, we should ask whether the civil rights laws of yesterday are equipped to address the race problems of today. Half a century after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial discrimination still exists, but it manifests itself differently. Rather than explicitly barring someone from employment, education, public accommodations, or civic participation on the basis of his or her race, racially discriminatory exclusion is often couched in seemingly race-neutral terms. English language requirements are one example of this. A sign outside a restaurant stating, “No Mexicans, …

Categorically Black, White, Or Wrong: 'Misperception Discrimination' And The State Of Title Vii Protection, D. Wendy Greene

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article exposes an inconspicuous, categorically wrong movement within antidiscrimination law. A band of federal courts have denied Title VII protection to individuals who allege “categorical discrimination”: invidious, differential treatment on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, or sex. Per these courts, a plaintiff who self-identifies as Christian but is misperceived as Muslim cannot assert an actionable claim under Title VII if she suffers an adverse employment action as a result of this misperception and related animus. Though Title VII expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, courts have held that such a plaintiff’s claim of “misperception …

An Industry Missing Minorities: The Disparate Impact Of The Securities And Exchange Commission's Fingerprinting Rule, Kelly Noonan

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") recently asserted that the use of criminal background checks as an employment screening tool may have a disparate impact on African Americans and Hispanics, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC and some private claimants have even filed lawsuits against employers claiming disparate impact violations based on statistics that show African Americans and Hispanics are considerably more likely to have criminal records than other racial groups. Yet, certain federal regulatory agencies require participants in their industries to subject employees to criminal background checks as a condition of …

Harvesting New Conceptions Of Equality: Opportunity, Results, And Neutrality, Cedric M. Powell

Cedric M. Powell

Race, Sex And Genes At Work: Uncovering The Lessons Of Norman-Bloodsaw, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) is the first federal, uniform protection against the use of genetic information in both the workplace and health insurance. Signed into law on May 21, 2008, GINA prohibits an employer or health insurer from acquiring or using an individual’s genetic information, with some exceptions. One of the goals of GINA is to eradicate actual, or perceived, discrimination based on genetic information in the workplace and in health insurance. Although the threat of genetic discrimination is often discussed in universal terms - as something that could happen to any of us - the …

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.