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Full-Text Articles in Law
Retaliation And The Reasonable Person, Sandra F. Sperino
Retaliation And The Reasonable Person, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
When a worker complains about discrimination, federal law is supposed to protect that worker from later retaliation. Recent scholarly attention focuses on how courts limit retaliation claims by narrowly framing the causation inquiry. A larger threat to retaliation law is developing in the lower courts. Courts are declaring a wide swath of conduct as insufficiently serious to constitute retaliation.
Many courts hold that it is legal for an employer to threaten to fire a worker, to place the worker on administrative leave, or to negatively evaluate the worker because she complained about discriminatory conduct. Even if the worker has evidence …
The Tort Label, Sandra F. Sperino
The Tort Label, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Courts and commentators often label federal discrimination statutes as torts. Since the late 1980s, the courts increasingly applied tort concepts to these statutes. This Article discusses how courts placed employment discrimination law within the organizational umbrella of tort law without examining whether the two areas share enough theoretical and doctrinal affinities.
While discrimination statutes are torts in some general sense that they do not arise out of criminal law and are not solely contractual, it is far from clear that these statutes are enough like traditional torts to justify the reflexive and automatic use of tort law. Employment discrimination statutes …
Rethinking Discrimination Law, Sandra F. Sperino
Rethinking Discrimination Law, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
In the 1970s, federal courts began identifying categories of discrimination, such as disparate impact, disparate treatment and harassment. They then created elaborate, multi-part rubrics tied to each category. Modern employment discrimination law is defined by these frameworks. They serve as gatekeepers that control the substantive discrimination narratives juries hear and also structure the ways that judges and litigants think about discrimination.
Legal scholarship is replete with excellent articles challenging specific frameworks courts use to evaluate discrimination claims. This Article does not challenge any particular framework. Instead it challenges whether courts should even use frameworks to conceptualize discrimination in the first …