Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Weathering Wal-Mart, Joseph A. Seiner

Notre Dame Law Review

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2531 (2011), the Supreme Court held that a proposed class of over a million women that had alleged pay and promotion discrimination against the nation’s largest retailer could not be certified. According to the Court, the plaintiffs had failed to establish a common thread in the case sufficient to tie their claims together. The academic response to Wal-Mart was immediate and harsh: the decision will serve as the death knell for mass employment litigation, undermining the workplace protections provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). …

Fakers And Floodgates, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

There has always been the possibility of judicial skepticism about employment discrimination claims. Recently, the Supreme Court made this skepticism explicit. In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the Supreme Court expressed concern about fake claims and floodgates of litigation. It then used these arguments to tip the substantive law against retaliation claims. This article responds to this explicit skepticism about discrimination claims. First, it shows that the Court created reasons to limit retaliation claims that are not tied to congressional intent. Second, the factual claims that the Court makes are not grounded in evidence, and available information …

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 …

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 …

Looking To Torts: Exploring The Risks Of Workplace Discrimination, Catherine E. Smith

Scholarly Articles

Tort law plays a powerful role in defining cognizable harms and allocating responsibility based on concepts of fault, individual and community interests, social values, morality, compensation, deterrence, and notions of fairness. So, the idea that it may serve as a source of guidance in employment discrimination law, and in particular, in one of the most intractable debates within employment discrimination jurisprudence--the requirement of discriminatory intent--is not "unreasonable." To shift from an intentional discrimination mindset to one focused on risks of discrimination will not be easy. Hopefully, this brief inquiry has offered some food for thought.

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 …

The Seventh Circuit Got It Wrong: Supervisors Should Not Face Individual Liability Under Section 1981, Emily Aleisa

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In Smith v. Bray, the Seventh Circuit, on a case of first impression, determined that supervisors with retaliatory motives can and should be individually liable under section 1981 when they cause the employer to retaliate against an employee. This article argues against the Seventh Circuit’s holding for four reasons. First, courts are required to analyze section 1981 the same way they analyze Title VII, and Title VII does not allow for individual supervisor liability. Second, the Seventh Circuit justified its decision based on a flawed comparison between section 1981 and section 1983, a similar but distinct civil rights statute. Third, …

Employment Discrimination Against Ex-Offenders: The Promise And Limits Of Title Vii Disparate Impact Theory, Tammy R. Pettinato

Marquette Law Review

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Title Vii At 50: Contemporary Challenges For U.S. Employment Discrimination Law, Trina Jones

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Diversity Feedback Loop, Patrick Shin, Devon Carbado, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

At some point in the near future, the Supreme Court will weigh in on the permissible scope of affirmative action to increase workplace diversity. Undoubtedly, many scholars will argue that if affirmative action is good for colleges and universities, it is good for workplaces as well. One cannot assess whether this “transplant” argument is right without understanding the complex ways in which diversity initiatives at colleges and universities interact with diversity initiatives at work. The university and the workplace are not separate and distinct institutional settings in which diversity is or is not achieved. They are part of an interconnected …

Narrowing The Gender Pay Gap By Providing Equal Opportunities: The Need For Tenured Female Professors In Higher Stem Institutions In An Effort To Recast Gender Norms, Claire R. Rollor

Student Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Legislating Incentives For Attorney Representation In Civil Rights Litigation, Douglas M. Spencer, Sean Farhang

Faculty Articles and Papers

Congress routinely relies on private lawsuits to enforce its mandates. In this article, we investigate whether, when it does so, the details of the legislation can importantly influence the extent to which the private bar is mobilized to carry out the prosecutorial function. Using an original and novel data set based on review of archived litigation documents for cases filed in the Northern and Eastern Districts of California over the two decades spanning 1981-2000, we examine the effects of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which increased economic damages available to Title VII job discrimination plaintiffs, on their ability to …

The Many Lanes Out Of Court: Privatization Of Employment Discrimination Disputes, Theresa M. Beiner

Law Faculty Scholarship

Despite employment gains made by women, older Americans, and racial and religious minorities, employment discrimination remains a persistent problem in the American workplace. Scholars have lamented that employment discrimination laws have not proven effective in eliminating the many vestiges of discrimination that still linger. Many scholars blame the lackluster enforcement of employment discrimination laws on the federal courts' inability to understand or theorize about the lingering aspects of discrimination based on race and sex that still pervade the modern workplace as well as judicial hostility to employment discrimination claims. Recent data suggest that this has led some employment discrimination claimants …

The Trouble With Torgerson: The Latest Effort To Summarily Adjudicate Employment Discrimination Cases, Theresa M. Beiner

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Retaliation In An Eeo World, Deborah L. Brake

Indiana Law Journal

This Article examines how the prevalence of internal policies and complaint procedures for addressing discrimination in the workplace are affecting legal protections from retaliation. Retaliation has been an unusually active field of law lately. The Supreme Court’s heightened interest in taking retaliation cases in recent years has highlighted the central importance of retaliation protections to the integrity of discrimination law. The Court’s string of plaintiff victories in retaliation cases has earned it the reputation as a pragmatic, pro-employee Court when it comes to retaliation law. However, this view does not account for the proliferation and influence of employer EEO policies …

Same-Sex Couples Denied Employer Benefits Will Get Their Day In Court, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

The Family Responsibilities Convention Reconsidered: The Work-Family Intersection In International Law Thirty Years On, K. Lee Adams

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981, No. 156 coming into force. Family responsibilities in the context of paid work and its implications for gender equality have been the subject of international regulation most specifically in ILO 156, although it remains a marginalized convention. Since then, the interaction of work and family and the conflict between them have exploded as a subject of scholarly importance. This article examines LO 156 in the context of chronological development of other major international legal instruments which address the intersection of work and …

Hours Equity Is The New Pay Equity, Nantiya Ruan, Nancy Reichman

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Missing The Forest For The Trees: Gender Pay Discrimination In Academia, Melissa Hart

Publications

Women in virtually every job category still make less than men. Academia is no exception. This Article will explore some of the structural explanations for this continued disparity and the continued resistance to seriously confronting those structural barriers to equality. Using the still-unfolding story of a charge of discrimination filed against a university, this Article examines the script that has become all-too-familiar in discussions about the gender pay gap, whether in academia or elsewhere. The basic storyline in pay discrimination litigation is this: Evidence is presented about the existence of a gap between men's earnings and women's earnings. The response …

Workers Disarmed: The Campaign Against Mass Picketing And The Dilemma Of Liberal Labor Rights, Ahmed A. White

Publications

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, mass picketing, characterized by large numbers of workers congregating in common protest at or near their employers' establishments, emerged as a crucial weapon in a historic campaign by American workers to realize basic labor rights and build an enduring labor movement in the face of strident resistance from a powerful business community. So potent a weapon did mass picketing prove that these business interests, aided by allies at all levels of government, moved quickly to ban the tactic. From the real-world complexities of labor conflict, this coalition forged a simplistic, analytically dubious, but …

Designing A Flexible World For The Many: "Essential Functions" And Title I Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, Michael J. Powers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores how courts interpret the meaning of “essential functions” under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To be protected under the ADA, a plaintiff must be able to perform the “essential functions” of her job with or without a reasonable accommodation. In general, courts follow one of two approaches when interpreting this phrase. The first approach narrowly focuses on the employer’s judgment regarding which functions are essential. The second approach considers the employer’s judgment, but looks beyond to consider the broader employment relationship. This Note argues that these different approaches have led to varying levels of …

Organizational Responsibility For Workplace Racial And Sexual Harassment: The Stories Of One Company's Workers, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

I begin this Article with the testimony of an African-American man who, along with hundreds of African-American coworkers, brought a race discrimination suit against an industrial construction and fabrication limited liability company ("LLC") doing business in Texas and Louisiana. The company, Turner Industries ("Turner"), rigorously defended itself against the allegations, and rather than settle the case, Turner and ten of the plaintiffs went to trial in October 2012. A jury awarded two of the ten plaintiffs in the 2012 Bellwether trial $2 million each in damages, but the plaintiff whose testimony I include above lost at trial and was …

It's Complicated: Age, Gender, And Lifetime Discrimination Against Working Women - The United States And The U.K. As Examples, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Malcolm Sargeant

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the effect on women of a lifetime of discrimination using material from both the U.S. and the U.K. Government reports in both countries make clear that women workers suffer from multiple disadvantages during their working lives, which result in significantly poorer outcomes in old age when compared to men. Indeed, the numbers are stark. In the U.S., for example, the poverty rate of women 65 years old and up is nearly double that of their male counterparts. Older women of color are especially disadvantaged. The situation in the U.K. is comparable.

To capture the phenomenon, the article …

A Reasonable Belief: In Support Of Lgbt Plaintiffs' Title Vii Retaliation Claims, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

When an LGBT employee is punished for complaining about discrimination in the workplace, he or she has two potential causes of action under Title VII: first, a challenge to the underlying discrimination, and second, a challenge to the resulting retaliation. The first claim is vulnerable to dismissal under courts’ narrow interpretation of Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination “because of sex” as applied to LGBT plaintiffs. But such an outcome need not determine the fate of the second claim. Faithful application of retaliation law’s “reasonable belief” standard, which protects a plaintiff from reprisal so long as she reasonably believed that she …

A Diamond In The Rough: Trans-Substantivity Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure And Its Detrimental Impact On Civil Rights, Suzette Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

$1.6 Million Employment Bias Award Upheld By Manhattan Appeals Court, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Federal Equal Protection, Taylor Flynn

Faculty Scholarship

The Author explores the use of due process and equal protection guarantees from the U.S. Constitution as a means to challenge workplace discrimination faced by LGBT government employees. The Author also discusses how private employees must rely on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to assert similar claims. Because sex discrimination is prohibited under both the Constitution and Title VII, federal courts have relied on reasoning in the former context when analyzing the latter, and vice versa. This means that a watershed case regarding one law can contain reasoning for the other. The Author goes on to the discuss …

Comment On The Definition Of "Eligible Organization" For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventive Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Robert P. Bartlett, Richard M. Buxbaum, Stavros Gadinis, Justin Mccrary, Stephen Davidoff Solomon, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

This comment letter was submitted by U.C. Berkeley corporate law professors in response to a request for comment by the Health and Human Services Department on the definition of "eligible organization" under the Affordable Care Act in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. "Eligible organizations" will be permitted under the Hobby Lobby decision to assert the religious principles of their shareholders to exempt themselves from the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate for employees.

In Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held that the nexus of identity between several closely-held, for-profit corporations and their shareholders holding “a …

Clothes Don't Make The Man (Or Woman), But Gender Identity Might, Jennifer Levi

Faculty Scholarship

The Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Jespersen v. Harrah's Operating Co., Inc. reflects the blinders on many contemporary courts regarding the impact of sex-differentiated dress requirements on female employees. Although some courts have acknowledged the impermissibility of imposing sexually exploitive dress requirements, they have done so only at the extreme outer limits, ignoring the concrete harms experienced by women (and men) who are forced to conform to externally imposed gender norms. On the other hand, some transgender litigants have recently succeeded in challenging sex-differentiated dress requirements. This success is due in part to their incorporation of disability claims based on …

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission And Structural Reform Of The American Workplace, Margo Schlanger, Pauline T. Kim

Articles

In one of its most-watched recent cases, the United States Supreme Court struck down a class action alleging that Wal-Mart stores discriminated against female employees in pay and promotion decisions. The plaintiffs alleged that Wal-Mart’s corporate culture and highly discretionary decision-making practices led to sex discrimination on a company-wide basis, and they sought injunctive relief as well as backpay for individual employees. Reversing the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court held in Wal-Mart v. Dukes that the proposed class failed to meet the requirements for class action certification under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of …