Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Sb 201 - Sick Leave, Mary Elizabeth D. Steinhaus, Chadwick L. Williams

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act amends Georgia’s general provisions relating to labor and industrial relations by adding a new provision that requires qualifying employers to allow their employees to use sick leave to care for immediate family members.

Disbelief Doctrines, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Employment discrimination law is riddled with doctrines that tell courts to believe employers and not workers. Judges often use these disbelief doctrines to dismiss cases at the summary judgment stage. At times, judges even use them after a jury trial to justify nullifying jury verdicts in favor of workers.

This article brings together many disparate discrimination doctrines and shows how they function as disbelief doctrines, causing courts to believe employers and not workers. The strongest disbelief doctrines include the stray comments doctrine, the same decisionmaker inference, and the same protected class inference. However, these are not the only ones. Even …

No Cake For You: Discrimination, Dignity, And Refusals To Serve, William D. Araiza

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreward: Wedding Cakes, Religion, And Sexual Orientation Discrimination, Paul M. Secunda

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment: Unconstitutional Accountability In The Department Of Veterans Affairs, Ian Pomplin

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017, Pub. L. No. 115-41, 131 Stat. 862 (2017), was enacted into law on June 23, 2017, in an effort to reform a troubled government agency that has had the media shine a spotlight on its abuses and waste. This new law significantly lowers the standard of evidence to take adverse actions against federal employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, overrides collective bargaining agreements, and greatly shortens notice and response time periods that are constitutionally guaranteed. This comment will discuss the history of due process in federal employment, …

The Growing Gender/Religion Divide, Marcia L. Mccormick

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

To Actually Give A Fair Chance: "Ban The Box" Law And The "Rationale Relationship" Standard, Stephanie Leacock

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Sex” Is Messy (And Always Has Been): A Textualist Argument For Application Of Title Vii To Sexual Orientation Discrimination, Rebecca J. Ok

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Three recent cases have created a circuit split as to whether Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination “because of . . . sex” applies to sexual orientation discrimination, priming this issue for Supreme Court review. Events suggesting a textualist turn on the Supreme Court mean the advocate must consider whether a textualist argument can be made for application of Title VII to sexual orientation discrimination. Treatment of the topic of sexual orientation by the medical community, the commercial film industry, and the mainstream news media in the 1960s is examined. It is argued that treatment of the topic of sexual orientation …

The Preferred Preferences In Employment Discrimination Law, Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In theory, customer preferences cannot justify discriminatory treatment by employers. The reality is more complicated. Built into the structure of federal employment discrimination law are several openings for customer preferences to provide employer defenses to what would otherwise likely be actionable discrimination.

This Article explores when and which customer preferences can enter those openings. It focuses on what I deem the “preferred preferences”: the customer preferences that have formed the basis of successful employer defenses to discrimination claims. This Article identifies and evaluates six such preferences: (1) aesthetic appeal; (2) physical privacy from employees of the opposite sex; (3) psychological …

Book Review: Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation By Renate Klein, Kate Rose

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Logic Of Speech And Religion Rights In The Public Workplace, Scott R. Bauries

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Prescription For Teaching The Law Of Reasonable Religious And Disability Accommodation, Kerri Lynn Stone

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment: Queer Womyn Of Color And Employment Discrimination Law In Wisconsin - Does Wisconsin Law Do Enough To Lift Anxiety?, Amber Lara

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

America's current leadership appears to actively seek out ways to isolate and oppress those who do not identify as cis-gender white heterosexual males. The purpose of this comment is to help readers understand the issues queer womyn of color face interacting with society on a daily basis. This comment will outline the harmful expectations of assimilation and how failure to assimilate may make these womyn targets in their work environments. This comment will also compare the handling of employment discrimination under Title VII and Wisconsin law and determine whether Wisconsin law in practice actually affords queer womyn of color more …

"When They Enter, We All Enter": Opening The Door To Intersectional Discrimination Claims Based On Race And Disability, Alice Abrokwa

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article explores the intersection of race and disability in the context of employment discrimination, arguing that people of color with disabilities can and should obtain more robust relief for their harms by asserting intersectional discrimination claims. Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first articulated the intersectionality framework by explaining that Black women can experience a form of discrimination distinct from that experienced by White women or Black men, that is, they may face discrimination as Black women due to the intersection of their race and gender. Likewise, people of color with disabilities can experience discrimination distinct from that felt by people of …

Sex Harassment Training Must Change: The Case For Legal Incentives For Transformative Education And Prevention, Susan Bisom-Rapp

Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of the #MeToo moment, employers, legislators, and human resources professionals have defaulted to a familiar solution to what seems like an epidemic of workplace harassment: mandatory sex harassment training. The chosen antidote, however, begs an important question that this author posed over 15 years ago: Does sex harassment training actually prevent harassment? My review of the social science research in 2001 revealed no convincing evidence that sex harassment training curbs harassment. In fact, the scant research available indicated that training, as typically conducted in American workplaces, may backfire, triggering stereotypes about women and people of color, and …

Fleeing The Rat’S Nest: Title Vii Jurisprudence After Ortiz V. Werner Enterprises, Inc., Zachary J. Strongin

Brooklyn Law Review

In 2016, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion that may be a harbinger for an important shift in the federal judiciary’s long-standing employment discrimination jurisprudence. In Ortiz v. Werner Enterprises, Judge Easterbrook reiterated the frustration with the existing “rat’s nest” of tests and standards used in Title VII discrimination and retaliation claims. The note contains two overarching arguments. First, the Supreme Court’s employment discrimination and “rat’s nest” of tests and standards has led to an untenable situation in which federal district courts apply different standards at different stages of litigations. This in turn has caused confusion amongst the various federal …

Discrimination In Online Employment Recruiting Symposium: Law, Technology, And The Organization Of Work, Pauline T. Kim, Sharion Scott

Scholarship@WashULaw

Employment recruitment is increasingly moving online as employers use Facebook and other social media platforms to advertise job opportunities. This shift to online advertising allows employers to more precisely target workers likely to apply, but also raises concerns about unfair exclusion. This essay explains the mechanisms though which online recruiting can produce discriminatory effects and examines the question of when employers will be liable under existing employment discrimination laws. Both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act contain little-noticed provisions that specifically forbid discriminatory advertising, in addition to their general prohibitions …

Decriminalization Of Prostitution: The Soros Effect, Jody Raphael

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article explores the activities of George Soros and his charitable organization, Open Society Foundations (OSF), in advocating for the full decriminalization of the sex trade industry. Research finds that OSF spends only a small amount of money on grass roots “sex worker” groups around the world advocating for full decriminalization, but the foundation awards larger amounts of funds to large human rights groups whose reports and policies have a wider reach. OSF’s rationale for full decriminalization fails to consider violence and coercion in the sex trade industry, misreads research, and does not include research from venues where full decriminalization …

Ending Harassment By Starting With Retaliation, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This Essay posits that the fear of retaliation significantly contributes to the problem of harassment—we cannot hope to end harassment without starting by addressing the reality of retaliation. Although some scholars have argued that the fear of retaliation is one reason women don’t report harassment, and some scholars have discussed the inadequacies of anti-retaliation law, this Essay breaks new ground by arguing that ending harassment must start with preventing retaliation. Part I backs up what seems to be a commonsense proposition: Many victims of harassment do not report it because they fear retaliation.5 Part II then describes the difficulty in …

Lessons From Labor Feminists: Using Collective Action To Improve Conditions For Women Lawyers, Marion Burke

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Title Vii And The #Metoo Movement, Rebecca White

Scholarly Works

The #MeToo movement has drawn unprecedented attention to sexual harassment in the workplace. But there is a disconnect between sexual harassment as popularly understood and sexual harassment as prohibited by Title VII. This Essay identifies those areas where the law and the public understanding of it most starkly diverge. These include the requirements of severity or pervasiveness, the issue of unwelcomeness, the availability of an affirmative defense for hostile work environment claims, and the time limits within which claims must be brought. Additionally, those making claims of sexual harassment fare poorly when they suffer retaliation for stepping forward. Internal complaints …

Caring For Workers, Martha T. Mccluskey

Maine Law Review

This essay examines the question of conflict between market work and family care from the angle of family caretaking labor for workers rather than for dependents. Feminist legal scholars and activists have been concerned for generations about the effect of women's unpaid caretaking work on women's participation and success in the wage labor market. Better public support for this gendered family care work is crucial to many leading visions of feminist legal and economic change. Recent welfare reforms, however, have increased the extent to which public policy treats caretaking instead as a personal responsibility (or a sign of personal irresponsibility) …

Caretaking And The Contradictions Of Contemporary Policy, Michael Selmi, Naomi Cahn

Maine Law Review

Contemporary social policy relating to women's employment remains strikingly ambivalent. Those in favor of traditional family structures, a position that is generally associated with conservative political agendas, have often expressed a preference for a family model that emphasizes the woman's role as a homemaker, or to use the more recent term, a caretaker. At the same time, as the 1996 Welfare Reform Act demonstrates, if the choice is between providing financial support that would enable lower-income women to stay in the home and forcing those women into the labor market, the conservative agenda will opt for the latter. More recently, …

Telecommuting: The Escher Stairway Of Work/Family Conflict, Michelle A. Travis

Maine Law Review

According to Working Mother magazine, telecommuting is a “wonderful arrangement for working moms.” Advertisements for telecommuting jobs and related technologies show us pictures of these happy telecommuting moms, who are conducting important business on the telephone or typing busily at their computers, as their smiling toddlers play quietly by their sides or sit contentedly in their laps. Some employers have offered this wonderful experience in direct response to concerns raised by “women's issues” committees. That was probably just what Jack Nilles had in mind when he first coined the term “telecommuting” in the 1970s and described it as a way …

Job Segregation, Gender Blindness, And Employee Agency, Tracy E. Higgins

Maine Law Review

Almost forty years after the enactment of Title VII, women's struggle for equality in the workplace continues. Although Title VII was intended to “break[] down old patterns of segregation and hierarchy,” the American workplace remains largely gender-segregated. Indeed, more than one-third of all women workers are employed in occupations in which the percentage of women exceeds 80%. Even in disciplines in which women have made gains, top status (and top paying) jobs remain male-dominated while the lower status jobs are filled by women. This pattern of gender segregation, in turn, accounts for a substantial part of the persistent wage gap …

Lessons From The Fields: Female Farmworkers And The Law, Maria L. Ontiveros

Maine Law Review

In both the fields of labor law and gender studies, we learn the most from experience. The experience of workers coming together to demand equality and respect and the experience of women coming together to share their experiences has led to most of what we study in these fields. Unfortunately, too many times traditional legal doctrine does not fit these experiences. In those cases, we must struggle to change the law to be responsive to the lived experiences of women and workers. This Article explores the lived experiences of one particular group of workers—immigrant farmworking women in California. From their …

Gender Typing In Stereo: The Transgender Dilemma In Employment Discrimination, Richard F. Storrow

Maine Law Review

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) prohibits discrimination against men because they are men and against women because they are women. This familiar characterization of the Act has been quoted in dozens of sex discrimination cases to support a narrow view of who is protected against sex discrimination in this country. When transsexuals file suit, “[e]mployment discrimination jurisprudence at both the federal and state levels ... captures transsexuals in a discourse of exclusion from social participation. This wide net, using a remarkably refined system of semantic manipulations, snags all claims launched by transsexuals and reveals …

Sex, Allies And Bfoqs: The Case For Not Allowing Foreign Corporations To Violate Title Vii In The United States, Keith Sealing

Maine Law Review

The extent to which foreign corporations as well as their domestic subsidiaries can discriminate against American employees on the basis of sex, age, religion, and national origin in a manner that would be acceptable under their own laws and customs but inimical to American law is currently determined by a muddled jumble of circuit court opinions interpreting a “[w]e express no view” Supreme Court footnote. As a result, American victims of sexual discrimination have much less protection under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when the discriminating actor is a foreign corporation or its domestic subsidiary than …

Congressional Power To Regulate Sex Discrimination: The Effect Of The Supreme Court's "New Federalism", Calvin Massey

Maine Law Review

Congressional power to prevent and remedy sex discrimination in employment has been founded almost entirely upon the commerce power and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which gives Congress power “to enforce, by appropriate legislation” the equal protection guarantee. The commerce power has enabled Congress to prohibit private sex discrimination in employment, and the combination of the commerce and enforcement powers has enabled Congress to prohibit such sex discrimination by public employers. From the late 1930s until the early 1990s the doctrinal architecture of these powers was relatively stable, even if statutory action to realize the promise of a nondiscriminatory …