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Full-Text Articles in Law
Does Ricci Herald A New Disparate Impact?, Joseph Seiner, Benjamin N. Gutman
Does Ricci Herald A New Disparate Impact?, Joseph Seiner, Benjamin N. Gutman
Faculty Publications
Federal law has long prohibited not just intentional discrimination by employers, but also practices that have an unintentional disparate impact on minorities. A cryptic passage at the end of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Ricci v. DeStefano may signal a sea change for this disparate impact doctrine. Ricci, a lawsuit about a civil-service exam for firefighters, received widespread attention as a case about intentional discrimination. We show that the opinion also can be read to suggest a new affirmative defense for employers facing claims of disparate impact. Before Ricci, disparate impact was a purely no-fault doctrine. An employer was …
Another Hair Piece: Exploring New Strands Of Analysis Under Title Vii, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Another Hair Piece: Exploring New Strands Of Analysis Under Title Vii, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay re-examines antidiscrimination case law that allows employers to enforce hair grooming policies that prohibit natural hairstyles for black women, such as braids, locks, and twists. In so doing, this Essay sets forth an intersectional, biological - as opposed to cultural - argument for why such bans are discriminatory under Title VII. Specifically, this Essay argues that antidiscrimination law fails to address intersectional race and gender discrimination against black women through such grooming restrictions because it does not recognize braided, twisted, and locked hairstyles as black-female equivalents of Afros, which are protected as racial characteristics under existing law. The …
Back To Color Blindness: Recent Developments In Race Discrimination Law In The United States, Marcia L. Mccormick
Back To Color Blindness: Recent Developments In Race Discrimination Law In The United States, Marcia L. Mccormick
All Faculty Scholarship
The United States has a long and somewhat conflicted history of espousing egalitarian values and yet tolerating a certain level of subordination of particular groups to a greater or lesser extent at the same time. Like many countries, it struggles with reconciling the goals of equality, pluralism, and liberty, and the balance has been struck differently at different times. In the current wave of such efforts, the Supreme Court is marking an increasingly formalist approach to the question of discrimination, while Congress appears to be pushing a slightly more substantive approach to discrimination. This short paper analyzes the Court’s recent …