Law Commons^™

The Same-Actor Inference Of Nondiscrimination: Moral Credentialing And The Psychological And Legal Licensing Of Bias, Victor D. Quintanilla, Cheryl R. Kaiser

Articles by Maurer Faculty

One of the most egregious examples of the tension between federal employment discrimination law and psychological science is the federal common law doctrine known as the same-actor inference.

When originally elaborated by the Fourth Circuit in Proud v. Stone, the same-actor doctrine applied only when an “employee was hired and fired by the same person within a relatively short time span.” In the two decades since, the doctrine has widened and broadened in scope. It now subsumes many employment contexts well beyond hiring and firing, to scenarios in which the “same person” entails different groups of decision makers, and the …

Access To Counsel: Psychological Science Can Improve The Promise Of Civil Rights Enforcement, Victor D. Quintanilla, Cheryl R. Kaiser

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Employment discrimination claimants in general, and racial minority claimants in particular, disproportionately lack access to legal counsel. When employment discrimination claimants lack counsel, they typically abandon their claims, or if they pursue their claims, they do so pro se (without counsel), a strategy that is seldom successful in court. Access to counsel is, hence, a decisive component in whether employment discrimination victims realize the potential of civil rights enforcement. Psychological science analyzes access to counsel by identifying psychological barriers—such as threatened social identity, mistrust in legal authorities, and fear of repercussions—that prevent employment discrimination victims from pursuing counsel. The analysis …