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Full-Text Articles in Law

Reflections On The Supreme Court's 1988 Term: The Employment Discrimination Decisions And The Abandonment Of The Second Reconstruction, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

Reflections On The Supreme Court's 1988 Term: The Employment Discrimination Decisions And The Abandonment Of The Second Reconstruction, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

No abstract provided.


The Demise Of Circumstantial Proof In Employment Discrimination Litigation: St. Mary's Honor Center V. Hicks, Pretext, And The "Personality" Excuse, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

The Demise Of Circumstantial Proof In Employment Discrimination Litigation: St. Mary's Honor Center V. Hicks, Pretext, And The "Personality" Excuse, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

Since the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the courts have struggled to define the burdens of proof surrounding the central issue of an employer's alleged discriminatory intent. What evolved was the McDonnell Douglas framework, premised upon established concepts of circumstantial proof and inference. The approach permits plaintiffs lacking direct proof to nonetheless establish a violation of the Act by proving that the employer's explanation of the challenged decision was pretextual. In St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, a closely-divided Supreme Court substantially altered the McDonnell Douglas framework. Discrediting the reasons offered by the employer …


The Standard Of Causation In The Mixed-Motive Title Vii Action—A Social Policy Perspective, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

The Standard Of Causation In The Mixed-Motive Title Vii Action—A Social Policy Perspective, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

In this Article, Professor Brodin explores the causal-relation problem in individual employment discrimination suits alleging disparate treatment brought under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The effort in this Article is to define a theory of causation for the individual disparate treatment case that is consistent with the goals of title VII as well as with the realities and limitations of our adversary system of adjudication. Professor Brodin surveys the problem, traces the development of relevant case law and concludes with a proposal of causal analysis that separates issues of liability from those of remedy.


The Demise Of Circumstantial Proof In Employment Discrimination Litigation: St. Mary's Honor Center V. Hicks, Pretext, And The 'Personality' Excuse, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

The Demise Of Circumstantial Proof In Employment Discrimination Litigation: St. Mary's Honor Center V. Hicks, Pretext, And The 'Personality' Excuse, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

Since the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the courts have struggled to define the burdens of proof surrounding the central issue of an employer's alleged discriminatory intent. What evolved was the McDonnell Douglas framework, premised upon established concepts of circumstantial proof and inference. The approach permits plaintiffs lacking direct proof to nonetheless establish a violation of the Act by proving that the employer's explanation of the challenged decision was pretextual. In St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, a closely-divided Supreme Court substantially altered the McDonnell Douglas framework. Discrediting the reasons offered by the employer …


The Standard Of Causation In The Mixed-Motive Title Vii Action -- A Social Policy Perspective, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

The Standard Of Causation In The Mixed-Motive Title Vii Action -- A Social Policy Perspective, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

No abstract provided.


Costs, Profits, And Equal Employment Opportunity, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

Costs, Profits, And Equal Employment Opportunity, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

Professor Brodin explores the clash between the antidiscrimination principle embodied in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and employer self-interest in minimizing costs and maximizing profits. While precedent explicitly rejects a cost defense to an action brought under the statute, some courts have subtly adopted the equivalent under the guise of the business necessity defense to a disparate impact action. Permitting employers to utilize selection devices that disproportionately exclude minorities or women merely because they are less expensive than more sophisticated personnel procedures without discriminatory impact violates Title VII’s mandate, which imposes the costs of equal opportunity …


Bush V. Gore: The Worst (Or At Least Second-To-The-Worst) Supreme Court Decision Ever, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

Bush V. Gore: The Worst (Or At Least Second-To-The-Worst) Supreme Court Decision Ever, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

In the stiff competition for worst Supreme Court decision ever, two candidates stand heads above the others for the simple reason that they precipitated actual fighting wars in their times. By holding that slaves, as mere chattels, could not sue in court and could never be American citizens, and further invalidating the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in new territories, Dred Scott v. Sanford charted the course to secession and Civil War four years later. By disenfranchising Florida voters and thereby appointing popular-vote loser George W. Bush as President, Bush v. Gore set in motion events which would lead …


What One Lawyer Can Do For Society: Lessons From The Remarkable Career Of William P. Homans, Jr., Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

What One Lawyer Can Do For Society: Lessons From The Remarkable Career Of William P. Homans, Jr., Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

William P. Homans Jr. was an iconic civil liberties and criminal defense lawyer who mentored generations of younger lawyers that followed in his path. He appeared in cases that defined his times, from representing targets of the McCarthy-era inquisitions of the 1950s, to defending publishers of books like Tropic of Cancer when the authorities sought to suppress them, to serving on the defense team in the conspiracy trial of internationally-renowned pediatrician Benjamin Spock and four other leaders of the anti-Vietnam-War movement, to defending a doctor charged with manslaughter arising from an abortion he performed soon after Roe v. Wade legalized …


The Role Of Fault And Motive In Defining Discrimination: The Seniority Question Under Title Vii, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

The Role Of Fault And Motive In Defining Discrimination: The Seniority Question Under Title Vii, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

Seniority systems play an important role in American industry, often governing rights to promotion, pay scales, layoff, and relative entitlement to ancillary benefits. Seniority based decision making protects employees from arbitrary employer action, yet seniority's same protective feature often may frustrate minorities' efforts to achieve actual equal employment opportunity Relying on Title Vii's section 703(h), the Supreme Court has held that seniority systems are immune from attack unless discriminatory intent is shown. In this Article, Professor Brodin reviews the evolution of the intent standard now governing seniority system challenges. He contrasts the Supreme Court's restrictive definition of intent in the …


Review Of A Constitutional History Of Habeas Corpus, By William F. Duker, Mark S. Brodin Oct 2011

Review Of A Constitutional History Of Habeas Corpus, By William F. Duker, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

No abstract provided.


Ricci V. Destefano: The New Haven Firefighters Case And The Triumph Of White Privilege, Mark S. Brodin Dec 2010

Ricci V. Destefano: The New Haven Firefighters Case And The Triumph Of White Privilege, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

Ricci v. DeStefano is the most important recent Supreme Court pronouncement on one of the landmark enactments of the 1960s, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The decision, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that the white firefighters who topped the civil service list by virtue of their test scores were entitled to promotion, notwithstanding the disparate impact the test had on African-American candidates. The case has the potential to significantly curtail impact litigation under the statute, and certainly will discourage employers from monitoring their selection devices to remove “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when …