Law Commons^™

Intragroup Discrimination, Enrique R. Schaerer

Enrique R. Schaerer

Antidiscrimination law has long addressed patterns of discrimination that run across groups: whites against blacks, men against women—intergroup discrimination. But it overlooks less obvious patterns of discrimination that cut within groups: blacks against blacks, women against women—intragroup discrimination. Less conspicuous than its intergroup counterpart, intragroup discrimination nonetheless subverts equal opportunity. For gender, courts have devised a “sex plus” doctrine to address prejudice against subgroups, such as intragroup discrimination among women. But no scholar or court has formally adopted an equivalent “race plus” doctrine to address intragroup race discrimination. This Article proposes race-plus as a natural and logical extension of sex-plus, …

Welcome To The Family: A New Class Of Cognizable Claims Under The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Teresa A. Minnich

Seventh Circuit Review

In its recent decision Hall v. Nalco, the Seventh Circuit became the first Federal Circuit Court of Appeals to recognize a Title VII claim arising from adverse employment action following from a woman’s pursuit of in vitro fertilization, a type of infertility treatment. The Seventh Circuit’s decision creates a possible conflict with the Eighth and Second Circuits, which have both refused to recognize a cognizable Title VII claim where an employer excludes infertility treatments from insurance benefits plans. Furthermore, the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning articulates a murky distinction between childbearing capacity and fertility—although discrimination based on childbearing capacity violates Title …

Social Cognition 'At Work:' Schema Theory And Lesbian And Gay Identity In Title Vii, Todd Brower

todd brower

Lesbians and gay men are frequent subjects for modern news, politics, and court opinions. From marriage for same-sex couples to Congressional hearings on the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” regulation, decision-makers are setting policy based on their ideas about how gay people are and how they fit into society. But what are those perceptions and how do they interact with law? We ordinarily think of lesbians and gay men as predominantly childless, urban residents of cities like San Francisco, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles or as inhabitants of the Northeastern or Pacific Coast states. However, data from the 2000 …

Whistling While You Work: Expanding Whistleblower Laws To Include Non-Workplace-Related Retaliation After Burlington Northern V. White, Robert Johnson

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment will not attempt to harmonize the different standards or predict a future course of interpretation. Instead, it will address the existing disparity as an opportunity to amend whistleblower laws to provide meaningful protection against alltypes of retaliation, not just those that affect the whistleblower's terms or conditions ofemployment. With this broad goal as a basis, this comment will specifically advocate amending all federal whistleblower statutes' retaliation provisions to conform to Title VII's retaliation provision. This would eliminate the requirement that the retaliation affect the terms or conditions of employment and incorporate the public policy rationale outlined in Burlington …

Enforcing Femininity: How Jespersen V. Harrah's Operating Co. Leaves Women In Typically Female Jobs Vulnerable To Workplace Sex Discrimination, Amy Lifson-Leu

University of San Francisco Law Review

This Comment argues that the Ninth Circuit was mistaken in concluding that Jespersen fell outside of the Supreme Court's rule on sex-stereotyping discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Flood Of Pregnancy Discrimination Cases: Balancing The Interests Of Pregnant Women And Their Employers, Jennifer Yue

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S. C.A.) (the 19 Act) likely has had the greatest transformative effect on American society of any single law. By prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, a national origin in places of public accommodation, in federally assisted programs, in employment, in schools and with respect to voting rights, this massive law has had profound effects on almost every facet of American society.

Retaliatory Discharge And The Ethical Rules Governing Attorneys, Alex B. Long

UTK Law Faculty Publications

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court held that a deputy district attorney who, as part of his job duties, raised concerns with his superiors about possibly unlawful activity and was allegedly fired in response had no First Amendment retaliation claim. In support of its conclusion, the Court suggested that adequate checks already existed at the state and federal level to curb the behavior of employers who engage in unlawful activity and to protect the employees who seek to prevent or expose such activity. In addition to state and federal whistleblower statutes, the Court singled out the rules of professional …

Retaliatory Discharge And The Ethical Rules Governing Attorneys, Alex Long

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court held that a deputy district attorney who, as part of his job duties, raised concerns with his superiors about possibly unlawful activity and was allegedly fired in response had no First Amendment retaliation claim. In support of its conclusion, the Court suggested that adequate checks already existed at the state and federal level to curb the behavior of employers who engage in unlawful activity and to protect the employees who seek to prevent or expose such activity. In addition to state and federal whistleblower statutes, the Court singled out the rules of professional …

Complying With Export Laws Without Importing Discrimination Liability: At Attempt To Integrate Employment Discrimination Laws And The Deemed Export Rules, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The federal deemed export rules prohibit certain individuals from receiving any information about certain technologies without the required license, even if those individuals are otherwise authorized to work within the United States. In other words, employers who deal with technology or software subject to export control may be considered to be illegally exporting such technology or software, simply by allowing certain foreign nationals to work with or gain information about the restricted items.

This article will attempt two moderately simple tasks and one more difficult. The first task is to identify the tensions that exist between the deemed export rules …

The Failure Of Title Vii As A Rights-Claiming System, Deborah Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

Articles

This Article takes a comprehensive look at the failure of Title VII as a system for claiming nondiscrimination rights. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007), requiring an employee to assert a Title VII pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when the discriminatory pay decision was first made, marks the tip of the iceberg in this flawed system. In the past decade, Title VII doctrines at both ends of the rights-claiming process have become increasing hostile to employees. At the front end, Title VII imposes strict requirements on …

What Counts As 'Discrimination' In Ledbetter And The Implications For Sex Equality Law, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

This article, presented at a Symposium, The Roberts Court and Equal Protection: Gender, Race and Class held at the University of South Carolina School of Law in the Spring of 2008, explores the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for sex equality law more broadly, including equal protection. There is more interrelation between statutory and constitutional equality law as a source of discrimination protections than is generally acknowledged. Although the Ledbetter decision purports to be a narrow procedural ruling regarding the statute of limitations for Title VII pay discrimination claims, at its …

Tough Pill To Swallow: Whether Catholic Institutions Are Obligated Under Title Vii To Cover Their Employees’ Prescription Contraceptives, Craig W. Mandell

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Instead Of Enda, A Course Correction For Title Vii, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

In September 2008, the D.C. federal court issued a landmark decision holding that discrimination against a transgender person was sex discrimination under Title VII. This decision throws into sharp relief the ongoing debates among supporters of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act about whether the compromise on including protection for gender identity claims. Consideration of ENDA in some form will likely be early on the agenda of the next Congress, especially under a Democratic administration likely to support the bill. This essay proposes an alternative to ENDA that would embrace the theoretical connections between sex, gender, and sexual orientation, with important practical …

Civil Rights And Related Decisions, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

This article analyzes two cases from the October 2006 Supreme Court Term, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Gonzales v. Carhart. The cases have much in common, even though Ledbetter concerns pay disparity claims based on gender and Gonzales concerns second trimester abortions. Both are five-four decisions which demonstrate how profoundly the appointment of Justice Samuel Alito to occupy Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat has affected the balance of power on the Court. The net result of this shift has been a devastating setback for women's rights. Both decisions prompted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to uncharacteristically read aloud …

The Disappearing Dilemma: Why Agency Principles Should Now Take Center Stage In Retaliation Cases, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad v. White, the Supreme Court soundly rejected the idea that the plaintiff must establish that conduct rose to the level of an adverse employment action to constitute retaliation under Title VII. This Article posits that, in an effort to square Burlington with other Title VII agency jurisprudence, the courts will be required to re-import the concept of tangible employment action into decisions regarding whether an employer is vicariously liable for actions committed by supervisors.

While the lower courts appear to recognize that agency issues come into play when retaliation is conducted by co-workers, …

The Failure Of Title Vii As A Rights-Claiming System, Deborah L. Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article takes a comprehensive look at the failure of Title VII as a system for claiming nondiscrimination rights. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007), requiring an employee to assert a Title VII pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when the discriminatory pay decision was first made, marks the tip of the iceberg in this flawed system. In the past decade, Title VII doctrines at both ends of the rights-claiming process have become increasing hostile to employees. At the front end, Title VII imposes strict requirements on …

Ask, Don’T Tell: Ethical Issues Surrounding Undocumented Workers’ Status In Employment Litigation, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

The presence of an estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, of which an estimated 7.2 million are working, has become a flashpoint in the emerging national debate about immigration. Given these statistics, it is not surprising that many undocumented workers suffer injuries in the workplace that are typically legally cognizable. Even though undocumented workers are entitled to a number of legal remedies related to their employment, seeking legal relief often raises heightened concerns about the disclosure of their status. This article explores lawyers' increasingly complex ethical obligations with regard to a client's immigration status in the context …

Misapplying Equity Theories: Dress Codes At Work, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

This Article provides a new perspective on Title VII caselaw concerning employer-mandated, sex-specific dress codes. With few exceptions, courts have held that employer dress codes do not constitute sex discrimination even when they expressly differentiate based solely on an employee's sex. In other contexts, courts readily acknowledge that facially sex-based practices and policies are presumptively unlawful under Title VII. When it comes to dress codes, however, nearly the opposite is true. Courts generally presume a sex-based dress code to be permissible, and the burden falls heavily on the employee to show, beyond the mere fact of differential treatment, some additional …

Mega-Cases, Diversity, And The Elusive Goal Of Workplace Reform, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

Employment discrimination class action suits are part of a new wave of structural reform litigation. Like their predecessors - the school desegregation cases in the 1950s, the housing and voting inequalities cases in the 1960s, prison conditions suits in the 1970s, and environmental lawsuits since then - these are systemic challenges to major institutions affecting large segments of the public. This article explores the effectiveness of various employment discrimination remedies in reforming workplace cultures, promoting corporate accountability, and implementing real diversity.

Reviewing the architecture and aftermath of consent decrees in five major employment discrimination cases - the cases against Shoney's, …