Law Commons^™

The Respective Burdens Of Proof In Title Vii Cases: Price Waterhouse V. Hopkins Confuses The Issue, Gregory T. Rossi

Akron Law Review

employed women, and other minorities throughout the United States. The opinion has several significant aspects. First, the case defines the respective evidentiary burdens of a plaintiff-employee and defendant-employer in a Title VIP suit, when the plaintiff-employee has shown that the defendant-employer's employment action resulted from a consideration of legitimate and illegitimate factors (i.e., "mixed motive case"). Second, the express allocation of the burdens of proof resolved a conflict among the various Courts of Appeals. Third, the Court failed to issue a majority opinion. This is significant in light of the current republican administration and its influence on what is now …

Employment Discrimination, Stewart J. Schwab

Stewart J Schwab

This article first parses the multiple overlapping definitions of discrimination, including distinctions between group and individual discrimination and between segregation and discrimination in pay. The article then summarizes the major economic models of discrimination, particularly Becker’s taste-for-discrimination model and statistical-discrimination models, as well as sorting the status-production models. The discussion focuses on the conditions under which markets will tend to eliminate discrimination, noting that this occurs in a more limited range of situations than commonly recognized. The article next surveys the economic role of anti-discrimination laws, evaluating arguments that the law speeds the journey to a non-discriminatory equilibrium and that …

Athletic Compensation For Women Too? Title Ix Implications Of Northwestern And O'Bannon, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

The NCAA has been relying on Title IX requirements to defend its polices prohibiting compensation for college athletics; it argues that paying athletes in revenue sports, coupled with the commensurate obligation under Title IX to pay female athletes, would be prohibitively expensive.

As a response to the NCAA’s argument, the Author seeks to advance two positions: first, that Title IX would, as argued by the NCAA, require payment of female athletes using some measure of equality; and second, that it is not Title IX that renders the prospect of athlete compensation cost prohibitive, but rather, the fact that college athletics …

Centering The Teenage "Siren": Adolescent Workers, Sexual Harassment, And The Legal Construction Of Race And Gender, Anastasia M. Boles

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Recent scholarship and media attention has focused on the prevalence of sexually harassing behavior directed at working teenagers, and the emergence of sexual harassment lawsuits by these minors against their employers. Although many of the legal issues concerning workplace sexual harassment and adult workers (and the various state and federal jurisprudence prohibiting it) have been widely discussed, there is surprisingly little discourse, research, and precedent addressing the problem of workplace sexual harassment and teen workers. Currently, most sexual harassment cases brought by adolescent workers are litigated using the doctrinal framework for adult workers. Only the Seventh Circuit has developed an …

Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court case that held that policies that disproportionately harm minority employees can violate federal employment discrimination law even without evidence of “intentional” discrimination, recently turned forty. Griggs is generally celebrated as a landmark decision, but disparate impact’s current relevance (and its constitutionality) is hotly debated. Robert Belton’s The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace offers a rich and detailed history of the strategic choices that led to the plaintiffs’ victory in Griggs. This Review uses Belton’s history as a jumping off point to consider the contemporary importance of disparate impact in efforts to challenge …