Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Brief For Respondent. Madigan V. Levin, 571 U.S. 1 (2013) (No. 12-872), 2013 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 3187, Eric Schnapper, Harvey Levin, Edward Theobald

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Brief For Petitioners. Lawson V. Fmr Llc, 134 S. Ct. 1158 (2014) (No. 12-3), 2013 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 3164, Eric Schnapper, Indira Talwani, Kevin G. Powers

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Brush V. Sears Holding Corp., 568 U.S. 1143 (2013) (No. 12-268), 2013 U.S. Lexis 925, Eric W. Scharf, Wayne R. Atkins, Eric Schnapper, Brian D. Buckstein

Court Briefs

QUESTION PRESENTED

Section 704(a) of Title VII prohibits an employer from retaliating against an employee because he or she opposed discrimination forbidden by Title VII. The lower courts are divided as to how such anti-retaliation provisions apply to management officials, such as personnel or EEO officials, whose duties include assuring compliance with Title VII or implementing an employer’s anti-discrimination policy.

The question presented is: Are management officials: (1) subject to exclusion from protection under section 704(a) if their actions are within the scope of their official duties (the rule in the Fifth, Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits),
(2) protected under …

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Lawson V. Fmr Llc, 134 S. Ct. 1158 (2014) (No. 12-3), 2012 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 2827, Eric Schnapper, Indira Talwani, Kevin G. Powers

Court Briefs

QUESTION PRESENTED Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1514A, forbids a publicly traded company, a mutual fund, or “any ... contractor [or] subcontractor ... of such company [to] ... discriminate against an employee in the terms and conditions of employment because of” certain protected activity. (Emphasis added). The First Circuit held that under section 1514A such contractors and subcontractors, if privately-held, may retaliate against their own employees, and are prohibited only from retaliating against employees of the public companies with which they work. The question presented is: Is an employee of a privately-held contractor or subcontractor of …

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Dellinger V. Science Applications International Corp. (No. 11-598), 2011 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 2153, Eric Schnapper, Zachary A. Kitts, John J. Rigby

Court Briefs

QUESTIONS PRESENTED (1) Does the anti-retaliation provision in section 15(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act apply to retaliation by an employer against a job applicant? (2) Is the private cause action provided by section 16(b) of the FLSA available to a job applicant who is retaliated against by an employer?

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Opp V. Office Of The State's Attorney Of Cook County, 565 U.S. 815 (2011) (No. 10-1163), 2011 U.S. Lexis 6893, Eric Schnapper, Brian R. Holman, Dennis H. Stefanowicz, Tara Beth Davis, Susan Bogart

Court Briefs

QUESTION PRESENTED Five major federal employment statutes, including in this case the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, exclude certain government workers "at the policymaking level" from the definition of employees protected by those laws. The question presented is: who is a worker "on the policymaking level"?

Reply Brief For Petitioner. Thompson V. North American Stainless, Lp, 562 U.S. 170 (2011) (No. 09-291), 2010 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 2135, Eric Schnapper, David O'Brien Suetholz, Lisa S. Blatt, Anthony Franze

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Brief For Petitioner, Thompson V. North American Stainless, Lp, 562 U.S. 170 (2011) (No. 09-291), 2010 Wl 3501186, Eric Schnapper, David O'Brien Suetholz, Lisa S. Blatt

Court Briefs

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Section 704(a) of Title VII forbids an employer from retaliating against an employee because he or she engaged in certain protected activity. The questions presented are:

(1) Does section 704(a) forbid an employer from retaliating for such activity by inflicting reprisals on a third party, such as a spouse, family member or fiance, who is closely associated with the employee who engaged in such protected activity?

(2) If so, may that prohibition be enforced in a civil action brought by the third party victim?

Supplemental Brief For Petitioner. Thompson V. North American Stainless, Lp, 562 U.S. 170 (2011) (No. 09-291), 2010 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 2990, Eric Schnapper, David Suetholz

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Perfectionism And Maximum Consciousness In Anti-Discrimination Law: A Tribute To Judge Betty B. Fletcher, Norman W. Spaulding

Washington Law Review

What follows is a speech on the significance of Judge Betty Binns Fletcher’s opinions in the area of race and anti-discrimination law delivered at the University of Washington School of Law’s symposium, A Tribute to the Honorable Betty Binns Fletcher, honoring Judge Fletcher’s thirtieth year on the bench. I argue that, in an era when the Supreme Court has increasingly refused to recognize anti-discrimination claims, Judge Fletcher’s intensely fact-sensitive method of deciding such cases is as important as the results she has reached. Against the Supreme Court’s perfectionist jurisprudence, predicated on the assumption that by excising race from law, …

The Anabaptist Conscience And Religious Exemption To Jury Service, Michael Hatfield

Articles

While the concern over religiously devout Americans who wish to serve on juries is a serious one, a potential juror dismissed from service over his or her religiosity suffers a real but relatively abstract damage. The punishment is being sent home when they want to stay.

This Article examines a different issue with more severe consequences: religiously devout citizens who risk being jailed for refusing to serve on a jury. Rather than asking whether Jesus could serve on a jury, this Article addresses whether we should force Jesus to serve if he said God told him not to. More specifically, …

An Equal Protection Standard For National Origin Classifications: The Context That Matters, Jenny Rivera

Washington Law Review

The Supreme Court has stated, "[c]ontext matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause."' Judicial review of legislative race-based classifications has been dominated by the context of the United States' history of race-based oppression and consideration of the effects of institutional racism. Racial context has also dominated judicial review of legislative classifications based on national origin. This pattern is seen, for example, in challenges to government affirmative action programs that define Latinos according to national origin subclasses. As a matter of law, these national origin-based classifications, like race-based classifications, are subject to strict scrutiny and can only …

Bortz V. Suzuki, Judgment Of October 12, 1999, Hamamatsu Branch, Shizuoka District Court, Timothy Webster

Washington International Law Journal

The Bortz case links a series of truly comparative moments. In the first, the unsuspecting foreigner crosses into another culture’s blind spot, and emerges a very different person. Ana Bortz was shopping for a necklace in a Japanese jewelry store when the owner asked her where she was from. A westerner in Japan, Bortz likely thought little of the question, having answered it many times. She answered first in Japanese, and then in English, “from Brazil.” Neither response pleased the storeowner. Foreigners, or perhaps just Brazilians, were not allowed in the store. Their ensuing argument revealed other comparative moments. Enraged …

Supplemental Brief For Respondent, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Ry. Co. V. White, 548 U.S. 53 (2006) (No. 05-259), 2006 Wl 690256, Donald A. Donati, William B. Ryan, Eric Schnapper

Court Briefs

Respondent submits this supplemental brief pursuant to Rule 25.5 of this Court.

Under the unique circumstances of this case, the brief for the United States constitutes "intervening matter that was not available in time to be included in a brief." A majority of the government’s argument consists of an attack on the literal reading of section 704(a) advanced respondent. If this Court were to adopt the government’s narrow reading of section 704(a), it is far from certain that respondent would prevail. The original panel of the Sixth Circuit that heard this case applied a version of the "materially adverse" formulation …

By Any Other Name?: On Being "Regarded As" Black, And Why Title Vii Should Apply Even If Lakisha And Jamal Are White, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Mario L. Barnes

Articles

Applying theories concerning the social construction of race, this Article borrows from the definition of disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the courts' analyses of disability discrimination cases under the "regarded as" disabled provision of the ADA, which allows a plaintiff to bring a claim against an employer who regards the plaintiff as having an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. Using the "regarded as" provision as a model, this Article proposes a new method for recognizing discrimination claims based on the use of proxies for race-even when those proxies have been used …

The Politics Of Infertility: Recognizing Coverage Exclusions As Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

Articles

Infertility affects approximately ten percent of the reproductive-age population in the United States, and strikes people of every race, ethnicity and socio-economic level. It is recognized by the medical community as a disease, one with devastating physical, psychological, and financial effects. Nonetheless, comprehensive coverage of infertility treatments under employer-sponsored plans - where, like Jane, most Americans get health insurance - appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Can Jane sue for disability discrimination, sex discrimination, or both? While the answer - "it depends" - should not be surprising to anyone who has survived even a semester of law …

Classes, Persons, Equal Protection, And Village Of Willowbrook V. Olech, Robert C. Farrell

Washington Law Review

In most contexts, the Equal Protection Clause serves as a limitation on government classifications, but it has also been used as a protector of individual rights. These competing versions of equal protection are contradictory, but courts have for the most part ignored this problem. In Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, the United States Supreme Court determined that an individual homeowner had stated a valid equal protection claim when she alleged that she alone, without regard to her membership in any class, had been treated differently from other similarly situated homeowners. The Court's decision in Olech has created a powerful …

Substantially Limited Justice?: The Possibilities And Limits Of A New Rawlsian Analysis Of Disability-Based Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

Articles

John Rawls has been called the most significant and influential moral philosopher of the twentieth century, and his ideas have deeply influenced discussions of social, political, and economic justice across disciplines including law, philosophy, and political science. Given his preeminence, does Rawls's theory of justice as fairness fail in either of the two ways described above or is it a promising analysis for achieving justice for people with disabilities?

In its most recent terms, the Supreme Court has increasingly turned its attention toward the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the ADA). In several significant decisions, it has grappled with …

Closing A Discrimination Loophole: Using Title Vii's Anti-Retaliation Provision To Prevent Employers From Requiring Unlawful Arbitration Agreements As Conditions Of Continued Employment, Sidney Charlotte Reynolds

Washington Law Review

Courts have long viewed mandatory arbitration agreements (MAAs) as contract provisions that employees may accept or decline based on the common law doctrine of employment at-will. However, employees may see such MAAs as attempts to curtail Title VII rights and may refuse to sign them. Title VII prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who oppose discriminatory employment practices. A legal loophole has developed where some employers seek explicitly or implicitly to exempt themselves from Title VII's provisions by drafting MAAs that eliminate statutory rights and remedies from the arbitration process or deter employees from filing discrimination claims altogether. The U.S. …

Two Wrongs Do Not Make A Defense: Eliminating The Equal-Opportunity-Harasser Defense, Shylah Miles

Washington Law Review

Sexual harassment is a prevalent problem in the American workplace that accounts for nearly sixty-four percent of all gender discrimination claims under Title VII. The equal-opportunity-harasser defense allows harassers who target both males and females to escape liability. Courts have allowed the defense because they have interpreted the "because of sex" element of a sexual harassment claim to require disparate treatment or a showing that the plaintiffs would not have been harassed if they were members of the opposite sex. An equal-opportunity harasser harasses both sexes and, therefore, plaintiffs cannot prove disparate treatment. This Comment argues that the disparate-treatment requirement …

The Reasonable Girl: A New Reasonableness Standard To Determine Sexual Harassment In Schools, Carrie L. Hoon

Washington Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education that schools may be liable under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments for student-to-student hostile-environment sexual harassment. Although the Court required that conduct be severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive to qualify as sexual harassment under the statute, it did not establish an objective reasonableness standard to evaluate allegedly harassing conduct. In the context of Title VII employment-discrimination jurisprudence, some courts apply a reasonable-woman standard to determine what conduct is objectively hostile or abusive such that it constitutes actionable hostile-environment sexual harassment in the workplace. This Comment …

The Equal Pay Act As Appropriate Legislation Under Section 5 Of The Fourteenth Amendment: Can State Employers Be Sued?, Thane Somerville

Washington Law Review

Congress may constitutionally abrogate state sovereign immunity only through legislation enacted pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, the U.S. Supreme Court held the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to be inappropriate Section 5 legislation. Kimel was the first time the Court held an anti-discrimination statute enacted to protect civil rights inapplicable to the states. Based on the Kimel decision, other civil rights statutes, such as the Equal Pay Act (EPA), may face similar challenges. This Comment argues that the EPA is appropriate Section 5 legislation. Unlike …

Victimized Twice -- The Intersection Of Domestic Violence And The Workplace: Legal Reform Through Curriculum Development, Lea B. Vaughn

Articles

Domestic violence is at least a two-fold problem for American society. On the one hand, it is one of the leading causes of violence at the workplace against women. On the other, it prevents many women from attaining the economic security that would enable them to escape violence. After describing the background of this problem, this paper will canvass current legal remedies that are available to help battered women achieve economic security. This survey leads to the conclusion that the current pastiche of remedies is often ineffective because of their piecemeal approach to the problem, or because current doctrine does …

Hate Exposed To The Light Of Day: Determining The Boy Scouts Of America's Expressive Purpose Solely From Objective Evidence, Cara J. Frey

Washington Law Review

In the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court took considerable steps toward decreasing the uncertainty surrounding an organization's associational freedoms by requiring an organization seeking to exclude individuals solely based on status to prove that its expressive purpose would be undermined if it included such members. However, these Supreme Court cases failed to establish any consistent approach to determining an organization's expressive purpose. Problems have arisen most acutely with the claims of gays seeking to be included in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), an organization with a multifaceted and vague message. As the law now stands, courts have broad discretion …

Appearance Matters: A Proposal To Prohibit Appearance Discrimination In Employment, Elizabeth M. Adamitis

Washington Law Review

The consideration of appearance in employment decisionmaking context is prevalent and widely accepted. Nonetheless, statutory protection against such discrimination remains limited. Federal protection applies only to claims related to already-protected categories of discrimination, including disability, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and age. Only one state and a small number of cities and counties explicitly prohibit appearance discrimination in employment. This Comment argues that consideration of appearance in employment decisions is not justified, rational, or beneficial to society unless a bona fide occupational qualification or reasonable business purpose exists. States should adopt statutory protection for appearance to.protect otherwise qualified applicants …

Sex Discrimination And Insurance For Contraception, Sylvia A. Law

Washington Law Review

Unintended pregnancy is a serious problem in the United States. Most private insurance plans do not pay for contraception even though they pay for other prescription drugs and devices. This Article argues that this pattern constitutes sex discrimination and is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. It discusses the reasons this issue has been neglected and suggests ways federal and state officials might remedy this common form of gender discrimination.

Marital Status Discrimination In Washington: Relevance Of The Identity And Actions Of An Employee's Spouse, Katrina R. Kelly

Washington Law Review

Before 1993, Washington's employment anti-discrimination statute did not define the term "marital status," and courts interpreted the term broadly to include discrimination based upon the actions or identity of an employee's spouse. A 1993 amendment to the Law Against Discrimination added a definition of marital status. Although the Supreme Court of Washington has not yet considered the impact of this amendment, the dissent in Magula v. Benton Franklin TitlCeo . argued that the change in the statute should narrow the interpretation of marital status to exclude the identity and actions of an employee's spouse. This Comment argues that the scope …

Judicial Deference To Administrative Construction Of Washington's Law Against Discrimination: Griffin V Eller And Marquis V. City Of Spokane, Michael Spiro

Washington Law Review

Washington's Law Against Discrimination is a broad remedial statute, granting both a general civil right to be free from discrimination and prohibiting certain specific "unfair practices." Although no person may be prevented from bringing a cause of action to enforce his or her civil rights, the remedies available for unfair practices are more limited. The Washington State Human Rights Commission ("Commission") recognized this statutory distinction, interpreting the Law Against Discrimination ("Act") to grant independent contractors the right to bring a cause of action for violations of their civil rights and to confine the statute's small employer exemption to its own …

The Fearful Symmetry Of Gay Rights, Religious Freedom, And Racial Equality, Walter J. Walsh

Articles

A decade has now passed since Julia Cooper Mack authored her most controversial judicial opinion, Gay Rights Coalition of Georgetown University Law Center v. Georgetown University. That opinion provoked two acts of Congress aimed at its reversal, newspaper editorials from coast to coast, and over one hundred scholarly authors debating its wisdom. In this short essay, I shall suggest that this extended hermeneutic debate has yet to touch upon the deepest implications of Judge Mack's Georgetown opinion. While recent scholarship on this story praises Judge Mack's unusual ability to reconcile clashing interest groups, a more accurate account might be …

"Overpaid" Older Workers And The Age Discrimination In Employment Act, Stacey Crawshaw-Lewis

Washington Law Review

Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to prohibit discrimination against older workers. The legislative history of the ADEA shows that Congress recognized that this discrimination most commonly stemmed from inaccurate stereotypes about the older worker. A review of ADEA cases decided between 1984 and 1995 demonstrates the frequent incidence of cases in which older workers allegedly were fired or not hired because of the higher salaries typically earned by these relatively experienced workers. This review also reveals that, applying an unduly mechanical version of the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine test, courts did not effectively identify (1) employment actions purportedly …