Law Commons^™

Employment Discrimination Law In Perspective: Three Concepts Of Equality, John J. Donohue Iii

Michigan Law Review

The essay begins with a discussion of which groups deserve the protection of employment discrimination law. With the protected categories of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act etched into the American consciousness, many might consider the appropriate categories to be fully self-evident. But of course, they are not, and many jurisdictions continue to struggle over whether certain dispreferred groups merit the law's solicitude.

No Time For Trumpets: Title Vii, Equality, And The Fin De Sièchle, D. Marvin Jones

Michigan Law Review

My essay seeks to examine the internal architecture of the discursive barrier - the wall - that the Supreme Court has built within the doctrinal framework of Title VII and concomitantly within the discourse of equality. To understand how the Court has erected this discursive wall, we must begin with history. Equality, while historically a vehicle for national identity and contemporaneously for modernist conceptions of justice, is synchronically and diachronically indeterminate. Equality is a deeply sedimented concept with not one objective meaning but successive levels of meaning built up over time. Each of those historic understandings is itself a unity …

Structuralist And Cultural Domination Theories Meet Title Vii: Some Contemporary Influences, Martha Chamallas

Michigan Law Review

This essay first looks at three important theoretical approaches - motivational, structural, and cultural - that mark the scholarly discourses on workplace equality since 1965. The motivational or individual choice theory is well established and has dominated legal discourse throughout this period. I concentrate in this essay on the other two visions, dating structuralist accounts from the mid1970s and cultural domination theories from the mid-1980s.

Title Vii And The Complex Female Subject, Kathryn Abrams

Michigan Law Review

One strength of Title VII has been its capacity to accommodate the changing conceptions of discrimination and the self-conceptions of subject groups. In the first decades of its enforcement, advocates have raised - and courts have endorsed - a range of contrasting conceptions in order to broaden the employment opportunities of protected groups. This flexibility is particularly evident with respect to women.

After exploring recent doctrinal efforts to respond to complex claimants, I address these questions and assess the prospects of change. Although the unitary or categorical notions of group identity under which Title VII has historically been enforced might …

Only Girls Wear Barrettes: Dress And Appearance Standards, Community Norms, And Workplace Equality, Katharine T. Bartlett

Michigan Law Review

In this essay I study both the judicial rationales and the scholarly criticisms thereof, agreeing with critics that community norms are too discriminatory to provide a satisfactory benchmark for defining workplace equality, but also questioning the usual implications of this critique. Critics assume that it is possible, and desirable, to evaluate dress and appearance rules without regard to the norms and expectations of the community - that is, according to stable or universal versions of equality that are uninfected by community norms. I question this assumption, arguing that equality, no less than other legal concepts, cannot transcend the norms of …

Understanding Mixed Motives Claims Under The Civil Rights Act Of 1991: An Analysis Of Intentional Discrimination Claims Based On Sex-Stereotyped Interview Questions, Heather K. Gerken

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and relevant case law to determine whether posing sex-stereotyped interview questions is actionable conduct under Title VII. It questions whether proof of discrimination during a phase in the hiring process, specifically during the interview stage, supports a Title VII claim without other independent evidence that the hiring decision was discriminatory. Part I explains that the circuit courts have envisioned the impact of discrimination during the hiring process differently and, as a result, are divided in determining whether sex-stereotyped interview questions are actionable under Title VII. Part II examines the legislative history …

An Administrative Battle Of The Forms: The Eeoc's Intake Questionnaire And Charge Of Discrimination, Laurie M. Stegman

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the EEOC's interpretation of Title VII as reflected in its regulations is consistent with underlying statutory intent and strikes an appropriate balance between the needs of employers and employees. Therefore, Congress should amend section 706(b) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide that a charge must be verified prior to the commencement of an EEOC investigation but not necessarily within the statutory filing period. Part I examines the legislative history of Title VII and its integrated procedures for obtaining administrative and judicial relief. Part II critiques the various ways in which …

Employment Equality, Affirmative Action, And The Constitutional Political Consensus, Robert A. Sedler

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Equality Transformed: A Quarter-Century of Affirmative Action by Herman Belz and A Conflict of Rights: The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action by Melvin I. Urofsky

Finding A "Manifest Imbalance": The Case For A Unified Statistical Test For Voluntary Affirmative Action Under Title Vii, David D. Meyer

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the "manifest imbalance" standard developed in Weber and Johnson and the various approaches the lower courts have taken in trying to apply the test. Part I examines the Weber and Johnson opinions in some detail, and argues that the Court intended to permit affirmative action aimed at remedying the evident effects of past discrimination, regardless of whether the employer or society at large is to blame. Section I.A describes the diverging constitutional and statutory standards for evaluating voluntary affirmative action programs, and the policies behind the divergence. Sections I.B and I.C take a closer look at the …

Clearing The Mixed-Motive Smokescreen: An Approach To Disparate Treatment Under Title Vii, Robert S. Whitman

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Note describes the indirect-evidence inquiry of McDonnell Douglas and its basis in the policies underlying Title VII. Part II presents the various judicial treatments of cases where direct evidence is presented. These three major approaches reflect varying views of the burdens of proof regarding Title VII causation, and assume that the plaintiff has already shown some palpable level of discrimination. Part III describes Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, in which the Supreme Court first devised an approach to mixed motives. Although the Mt. Healthy analysis was developed for first amendment …

Discrimination, Jobs, And Politics: The Struggle For Equal Employment Opportunity In The United States Since The New Deal, James L. Thompson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States since the New Deal by Paul Burstein

Intent Or Impact: Proving Discrimination Under Title Vi Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the controversy and concludes that courts must apply an impact standard in title VI cases. After reviewing the relevant Supreme Court decisions, Part I contends that Bakke did not overrule Lau's approval of an impact standard. Part II examines the regulations on which the Lau court relied. It first characterizes them as legislative; they derive the force of law from an explicit congressional delegation of substantive power. Part II then tests the regulations' impact standard against the language, legislative history, and policy of title VI and finds it valid. Since courts may not disregard valid legislative regulations, …

The Proper Role Of Res Judicata And Collateral Estoppel In Title Vii Suits, Charles C. Jackson, John H. Matheson, Thomas J. Pikorski

Michigan Law Review

The Article proceeds from the premise, established in Part I, that federal courts must apply preclusion principles unless Congress clearly indicates otherwise. Part II considers a number of indicators of Congress's intent, and finds no evidence to rebut the presumption that federal courts must give preclusive weight to certain state decisions. Part III then proposes general guidelines for the application of preclusion doctrines in title VII litigation.

Title Vi, Title Ix, And The Private University: Defining "Recipient" And "Program Or Part Thereof", Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note explores the meaning of "recipient" and "program or part thereof' in title VI and title IX. Section I studies federal court definitions of "recipient" and the legislative history of title VI; it concludes that only organizations that exercise discretion in disbursing federal funds to students are "recipients." Section II explores the "program or part thereof' language as applied to the university by examining legislative history and recent discrimination cases. It argues that, since Congress sought to protect beneficiaries both from discrimination and from overbroad cutoffs, courts and agencies should draw the perimeters of a funds cutoff by balancing …

Sexual Harassment And Title Vii: The Foundation For The Elimination Of Sexual Cooperation As An Employment Condition, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Ten years after the enactment of Title VII, the federal judiciary confronted its first Title VII case in which sexual harassment was the primary allegation. In the next three-and-one-half years, six more claims of sexual harassment reached federal district courts, 4 and three federal circuit courts of appeal reviewed lower court holdings.

Neither these cases nor the considerable journalistic and academic attention they received reveals a consensus regarding the appropriate application of Title VII to cases of sexual harassment. This Note, therefore, examines the application of Title VII to the problem of sexual harassment and suggests a coherent framework for …

The Constitutionality Of The 1972 Amendment To Title Vii's Exemption For Religious Organizations, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This note will examine the constitutionality of the title VII exemption for religious associations, focusing on the extent to which the exemption is required by the free exercise clause and the extent to which it must be limited to avoid conflict with the establishment clause. The religion clauses will be considered solely in the context of the private business sector; this note will not consider the possibility that the establishment clause would require a narrower exemption for a quasi-public institution, such as a broadcast licensee or a religious association receiving public funds.

Title Vii And Nlra: Protection Of Extra-Union Opposition To Employment Discrimination, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act guarantees freedom from employment discrimination based on race, religion, sex, or national origin and establishes remedial procedures for aggrieved employees. A nondiscrimination clause in a collective bargaining agreement may also protect employees from discriminatory treatment; typically, the contract will also contain grievance machinery through which the employee, with the aid of his union, can present his complaint. The question remains: When both title VII and contract grievance procedures are available, can an individual employee or a group of employees take direct action against an allegedly discriminatory employer independently of the union and …

Religious Discrimination And The Role Of Arbitration Under Title Vii, Harry T. Edwards, Joel H. Kaplan

Michigan Law Review

One of the major thrusts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed by the 88th Congress of the United States after much procrastination and debate, is title VII, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, which prohibits selected forms of employment discrimination.

In drafting title VII, the proponents of the Act were chiefly concerned with racial discrimination in employment. In fact, the entire Civil Rights Act was written with an eye toward the elimination of the "glaring ... discrimination against Negroes which exists throughout our nation." Given this intent, it is not surprising that, during the hearings and debates preceding the …