Law Commons^™

Justice Kennedy's Big New Idea, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In a 2015 case, the Supreme Court held that plaintiffs could bring disparate impact claims under the Fair Housing Act (the "FHA"). In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy relied heavily on the text and supporting case law interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act ("Title VII") and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (the "ADEA '). Without explicitly recognizing the powerful new idea he was advocating, Justice Kennedy's majority opinion radically reconceptualized federal employment discrimination jurisprudence. This new reading of Title VII and the ADEA changes both the theoretical framing of the discrimination statutes and greatly expands their scope. …

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

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 …

Let's Pretend Discrimination Is A Tort, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In the past decade, the Supreme Court has repeatedly invoked tort common law to interpret federal discrimination statutes. During this same time period, the Supreme Court increasingly invoked textualism as the appropriate methodology for interpreting these statutes. One immediate effect of these two trends - tortification and textualism - is to restrict discrimination law by tightening causal standards.

This Article explores how interpreting discrimination statutes through the lenses of tort law and textualism can expand, rather than restrict, discrimination law. It assumes that courts will continue to characterize discrimination statutes as torts and as deriving from the common law, despite …

Torts And Civil Rights Law: Migration And Conflict: Symposium Introduction, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Curiously, the connection between civil rights and civil wrongs has not been a topic that has captivated the attention of large numbers of legal scholars over the years. The distance that has developed between the two fields likely reflects their placement on opposite sides of the public-private divide, with Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes forming part of public law, while torts is a classic, private law subject. To compound the division, both subjects are to some extent still under-theorized. Employment discrimination scholarship is often caught up in the process of analyzing the doctrinal implications of the latest Supreme Court …

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 …

Sky Remains Intact: Why Allowing Subgroup Evidence Is Consistent With The Age Discrimination In Employment Act, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Employers' stereotypes about the effect of age on employment are not consistent across the entire group of individuals age forty and older. It is intuitive to believe that employers may view employees in their forties as being in their employment prime, while believing that employees in their sixties are not.' Likewise, perceptions of age may vary dramatically depending on the age of the decision-maker. Common sense tells us that a supervisor in his or her forties may create policies that are neutral or positive toward individuals in that age range, while either intentionally or unintentionally engaging in employment practices that …

Disparate Impact Of Negative Impact: Future Of Non-Intentional Discrimination Claims Brought By The Elderly, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) as permitting plaintiffs to proceed under a disparate impact theory of discrimination. This decision affirms that plaintiffs who are at least forty years old may challenge employment decisions resulting from policies that are neutral on their face but have a disproportionate impact on individuals in the protected class.

Although this decision was heralded as a new tool to fight age discrimination in employment, Professor Sperino argues that the decision will have serious and detrimental effects on the ability of elderly employees to seek redress for unfavorable …