Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

Despite forming almost half of the law school graduates, women account for only 18% of the clerkships.

Within the last decade, there has been dramatic decrease in female access to participation in the country’s legal system. In fact, in last 12 years, this is the first time that the number of clerks is in single digit (7 out of 37), and more importantly, the case is even distressing considering that today there are at least 4,000 more female students graduating from law schools!

Volokh Conspiracy comments:

Is the cause possible differences in innate intelligence at the tail ends of the bell curve (what I'd heard called the idiot-genius syndrome, which leads men to be overrepresented both among the very low-IQ and the very high-IQ)? Sex discrimination in law school classes (whether on the exam or before) or in hiring? Social pressures that push some women away from law school? Differences in innate ambition? Social pressures that lead men to be more ambitious than women (for instance, because less ambitious men face more condemnation from parents, peers, or prospective girlfriends than do less ambitious women, or because more ambitious women face more such condemnation than more ambitious men)? The tendency of women to marry at a somewhat younger age than men, coupled with a tendency of married people to on average be less likely than single people to move? (Moving is often needed to get the prestigious appellate clerkship that can help lead to a Supreme Court clerkship.) The greater tendency of women than men to have spouses or lovers who aren't easily movable, which may again make it less likely that women would move to get the prestigious appellate clerkship? A combination of some or all of the above?

* Justice Breyer: 13 men, 15 women
* Justice Stevens: 16 men, 12 women
* Justice Thomas: 16 men, 12 women
* Justice Ginsburg: 16 men, 12 women
* Justice O'Connor: 14 men, 10 women
* Justice Souter: 18 men, 10 women
* Chief Justice Rehnquist: 13 men, 5 women
* Justice Kennedy: 25 men, 3 women
* Justice Scalia: 26 men, 2 women

Some reflections needed for Kennedy and Scalia here..

Retailer Target Corporation Must Face Trial on Race Discrimination Charges

It's in Their Interest, Too

Court overturns doctor's verdict

Employee sues county in sexual harassment suit

County manager in sexual harassment case fired again after reinstatement

ACLU Settles Case of Sexual Harassment and Labor Law Violations Against Manhattan Hotel

Mercer School Board debates student sexual harassment policy

Too Many Men Could Destabilize Society

No 'Light Duty' Jobs for Pregnancy?

After the Deluge: Organizers confront racial tensions

Sam Francis’ Race and the American Prospect: Thoughtfully Scandalous

Bias cases in decline

Audit: DA hasn't set aside dollars for discrimination verdict

Discrimination suit filed against Carnegie Mellon

Seeing beyond color

Even as incidents of disability discriminations are on an increase and the medical definition is under revision in favor of more inclusion in the country, the United States has abstained from signing an acclaimed UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was adopted in New York today.

Excuse is the usual: the US claims it already has a comprehensive policy. However such disregard to world community should not come as a surprise, since in blatant disregard to international sentiments, the US administration has refused to sign on numerous pro-people treaties in the past.

This treaty caters to a population of people with disabilities estimated at 650 million, and is the first human rights treaty of the 21st Century.

The new treaty gives greater rights to people with disabilities around the world. The draft of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities includes the following:

* Participating countries to change laws and ban discriminatory customs and practices

* Disabled people to have an equal right to life

* Equal rights for disabled women and girls

* Protection for children with disabilities

* A right to own and inherit property, to control financial affairs and have equal access to financial services

* Disabled people not to be deprived of their liberty "unlawfully or arbitrarily"

* Medical or scientific experiments without consent to be banned

* An end to enforced institutionalization

* Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse

* A right to privacy and access to medical records

* Countries to remove barriers to accessing the environment, transport, public facilities and communication

* A right to independent living

* Essential equipment to be made affordable

* A right to an adequate standard of living and social protection

* An end to discrimination relating to marriage, family and personal relationships

* Equal access to education

* An end to discrimination in the job market

* A right to equal participation in public life

* A right to participate in cultural life

* Developing countries to be assisted to put the convention into practice

Deutsche Bank cited for gender discrimination

District to Pay $1.12 Million For Age Bias Against Class of Retired Employees

Sexual Harassment Victims To Finally See Money

U.S. sues Norwegian Cruise Lines for discrimination

Discrimination is old hat, especially for seniors

Seven testify in discrimination case against 4th Street Live clubs

UN agrees disability treaty text

County Community Against Racism to enforce anti-discriminatory measures, educate at workplaces

Phillies' Former Groundskeeper Files Age Discrimination Lawsuit

Canady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.: Are offensive remarks proof of employer's racial bias?

Ex-controller says district violated whistleblower act, fired him due to race.

Target faces discrimination charges

EEOC settles race bias claim with Yonkers Rehab Facility

Police chief finalist terminated after sexual harassment complaints

S.F. contracting company agrees to pay $125,000 to settle discrimination suit

New Hampshire sexual harassment policy updated

EC--Over the counter at last

U.S. panel sues RAK of Gates after female workers complained

Employees file sexual harassment complaints against a New Jersey Parking Director

As many as 26 states have not yet mandated that employers cover contraception when other prescriptions drugs are covered. Whereas this has led to more unwanted pregnancies, with spiraling rise in pregnancy discrimination cases, women employees could not have a worse catch-22 situation.

This should sound alarming if the trends of unwanted pregnancies and their intersections with socio-economic class are analyzed.

A recent research study conducted by Rachel Benson Gold titled, "Rekindling Efforts to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy: A Matter of ‘Equity and Common Sense’" and published in the Summer 2006 issue of the Guttmacher Policy Review advocates ways to help low-income American women prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The decline in the U.S. abortion rate, especially steep during the early 1990s, has slowed to a crawl. Abortion rate per 1,000 women 15–44. Source: Guttmacher Institute, 2006.

Compared with higher-income women, poor women are four times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, three times as likely to have an abortion and five times as likely to have an unplanned birth.
Source: Guttmacher Institute, 2006.

Medicaid coverage for contraception would enable low-income women to prevent a total of nearly 500,000 unwanted pregnancies annually, including 200,000 abortions. By helping them to prevent an estimated 225,000 unwanted births, such an expansion would also save $1.5 billion in annual federal and state expenditures.

In addition, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, contraception is a medical necessity for three decades of a woman's lifespan. When a health care plan excludes contraception coverage, women must bear the costs out of their pocket. And with almost half of all pregnancies being unintended, it is necessary that state administrations prioritize accordingly.

Recently, Michigan Civil Rights Commission has ruled that businesses that offer comprehensive prescription coverage but fail to cover birth control are violating the state's civil rights act and could be forced to change their policies. Those employers are discriminating against women by failing to pay for birth control, while studies show that most women will use it in their lifetimes and it costs employers just about $1.43 a month per employee.

NRT Inc., the largest residential brokerage firm in the United States has been charged with blatant racial discrimination through an undercover investigation.

According to a report today in Chicago Sun Times, the National Fair Housing Alliance says that NRT’s Coldwell Banker specifically discriminated against African-Americans. During the investigations, it was found that white testers were shown 36 properties, while their African-American counterparts with better qualifications were shown only seven. In one case, a real estate agent reportedly even suggested an African-American tester posing as a buyer should rent rather than buy.

Even as racial discrimination cases abound in the corporate real estate sphere, profits for such firms grow manifold. As an example, only last year, NRT posted a real estate industry record with $230 billion in closed sales volume!

After a lengthy partisan debate, the California assembly has approved ban on antigay discrimination in schools. Sponsored by Democratic senator Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica, this bill was required to expand the antidiscriminatory protections now afforded to minorities based on race, gender, and religion.

The assembly voted 47–31 to ban materials and activities in schools that are discriminatory toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals.

The bill which now goes to the California senate, has been predictably denounced by Republicans. Assemblyman Jay LaSuer said, “This is a predatory bill. It preys on the innocence of children on a lifestyle that is unacceptable.”

The measure, known as Senate Bill 1437, had for quite some time become focus of conflict between the gay-rights advocates and moralist critics who apprehend that values were going to be under attack if the bill is passed.

Current California law provides prohibitions against teaching, activities or textbooks that discriminate on the basis of race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin or ancestry. SB 1437 adds sexual orientation to the list of protected classes. For example, with the bill passed, public school teachers (it applies only to public school teachers, not those on privately funded institutions) could not inform their students, that homosexuality is immoral or wrong.

Skepticism is also rife, since the bill is moved to State Senate now. Margita Thompson, spokeswoman for Governor Schwarzenegger says that the Republican governor has not said whether he will sign the narrowed SB 1437. But she said the governor continues to have concerns and "will not sign a bill that micromanages textbook selection."

Federal court judgment for age and sex discrimination involving three female teachers have cost a district administration about $666,000 in lawsuit.

Polly Ann Heller, Darla Marraccini and Penny Natale were all in their 50s when the Elizabeth Forward School District hired them. They claimed in their 2004 lawsuit that the district later on hired younger teachers at higher salaries and paid male teachers more than female teachers in comparable positions.
Once again in 2005, another dozen female teachers who were hired in the late 1990s made similar claims against the district in a pending lawsuit.

Although the district’s lead attorney claimed that the disparity was based on qualifications of the teachers (the school needed physics teachers to be paid high), Attorney Samuel Cordes, who represents the plaintiffs in both cases said the board can hire teachers at different salary levels, but it must have a legitimate reason for paying some teachers more than others.

As for the judgment in this case of age and sex discrimination, the jury and a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Elizabeth Forward officials failed to offer a credible explanation for paying the three teachers less than some of the new hires. Moreover, the district had changed their reason about seven times, which the jury could saw through. The 3rd Circuit in its ruling said it was clear the district had no clear hiring policy or procedure that it consistently followed, and its attempts to justify hiring some teachers at higher salaries "were unpersuasive and not believable."

According to a survey by ExecuNet, 74 percentage of executives (average age of 50) say they are concerned they will be discriminated against on the basis of their age. 58 percentage believe their age has disqualified them as a candidate for opportunities in the past.

A former Supreme Court justice in the Philippines has written a homophobic rant in his exclusive column to the Inquirer. Not just is it an abuse of freedom of speech and an expression of repressed homophobia, this is a classic case of the unbridled luxury that some powerful people still enjoy in the garb of opinionated columns. Illegal this is not yet. But inhuman? Read on:

The schools are now fertile ground for the gay invasion. Walking along the University belt one day, I passed by a group of boys chattering among themselves, with one of them exclaiming seriously, “Aalis na ako. Magpapasuso pa ako!” [“I’m leaving. I still have to breastfeed!”] That pansy would have been mauled in the school where my five sons (all machos) studied during the ’70s when all the students were certifiably masculine.

Is our population getting to be predominantly pansy? Must we allow homosexuality to march unobstructed until we are converted into a nation of sexless persons without the virility of males and the grace of females but only an insipid mix of these diluted virtues?

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will shortly announce their decision regarding Plan B emergency contraception (EC) without a doctor’s prescription.

Considering that years have passed since EC caused concerns to the conservatives, a “decision” must be welcomed at long last.

But what’s ironic is that even after EC is circulated in the market hopefully much better than previously, women who need it the most will not have access to the pills. In its pre-decision announcement, the FDA has restricted availability of EC only to women above 18.

Alan Guttmacher Institute research shows that in 2001 there were 271,000 pregnancies among women aged 15 to 17, and 87 percent of those pregnancies were unintended. Appears like either FDA is innocently ignorant, or deliberately apathetic towards the scenario of concern. Rather than helping the situation of unwanted pregnancies, the decision to restrict access is just a moralist position of negative value.

There is absolutely no good reason why the US should have waited for this long to legalize and market the EC for women. EC is available in many countries without any hassles. In France, even school nurses dispense pills to women below 18, without any parental consent.

Not only should EC be made accessible alongside condoms in places of distribution and sale, but there is no rationale except a conservative moralist political framework, as to why EC should be forbidden for women under 18.

Of course pitted against emergency contraception is the right-wing anti-abortion lobby. But despite suggestions to the contrary from medical professionals, the fact that FDA has bowed down to political pressure, is quite telling.

Continuing its legacy for delivering hollow promises, just as the Bush administration sure knew how to bargain for estate tax-cuts in name of minimum wage increase, now its FDA comes up to promote religious standards in the garb of legal underage barrier to emergency contraceptives.

How does one respond to the pre-decision announcement?
Thanks, but no thanks.

Florida’s Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department was under storm over several allegations of race and sex discrimination during the first week of August. An in-depth investigative report by the Human Rights Commission had found that many staff members were openly passing racial remarks aimed at black employees and women employees were routinely sexually harassed by an officer of Captain rank and some other male co-workers of his. The report initially suggested that the Mayor look into replacing the Fire Chief Rick Barrett and his staff. There were “widespread negative perceptions among African-American and female employees of inequities and favoritism throughout the department," the report stated.

The Commission upon discovering more cases of blatant sexual harassment, explicit racist comments by supervisors/managers and complete lack of disciplinary measures against the “white males” of the department, a couple of days later concluded that Barrett must be asked to resign.

However, Mayor John Peyton decided to stand by Rick Barrett! "These are my picks to lead this department. I think they do a great job in the balance," Peyton said.

Today, the Mayor’s picks are going to face some more heat. As an employee of 24 years with the department, Elizabeth Henderson has openly come out with an account of blatant harassment that should stir up the country’s assertion of “inclusiveness”.

“They do what they want to do, to whomever they want to do it to," Henderson said, who has faced two and a half years of ongoing harassment. "Once I heard the mayor say he gives the administration his 100-percent backing, that told me they now have the green light to continue doing what they have done all along. Leaving this current administration in control of correcting this issue is like leaving the fox in charge of the hen house. They are the ones doing it," Henderson said.

Indeed, with the Mayor proudly patting his “picks”’ backs, the fox needs to be focused on now.

Molly McDonough for ABA Journal this month has authored an extensive coverage of “Family Responsibilities Discrimination” cases which have, according to the EEOC reports, increased by 31 percent between 1992 and 2005. Last year alone, the EEOC received 4,449 charges and resolved 4,321, recovering $11.6 million in monetary benefits (not including litigation).

The article cites three triggers for the suits: allegations of discriminatory practices during pregnancy, maternity/paternity leave, and requests for flexible schedules.

Furthermore, most FRDs are marked by subtle discriminations in form of implied stereotyped persona of working women. Despite FMLA, most employers still enforce discriminatory “pregnancy-blind” policies. Indeed, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not “require or allow preferential treatment for pregnant employees”.

However, amendments to the 1991 Civil Rights Act provided for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination. This is supplemented by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, passed by Congress in 1978, which states that an employer violates the law if it intentionally discriminates against pregnant employees or maintains a policy that adversely affects pregnant employees. The PDA also covers pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, including abortion.

Related entry here.

By Jack Tuckner, Esq.

We at Tuckner, Sipser, Weinstock & Sipser, LLP currently represent a client who was terminated in the midst of her "maternity" leave. The offending company employs less than 50 employees, so it (and she) are not "covered" by the Family and Medical Leave Act, hence the quotation marks. She is entitled to take the same disability leave that all employees are allowed, as a post-partum pregnancy leave is indeed a "disability," albeit a transient and "healthy" one, but this company decided to terminate her within two weeks of her leave, indicating that they could not "wait" the full 6 weeks for her to return to work.

As she was a single mother whose 25K per annum position was all that separated her from full-blown impoverishment, her joblessness with a nursing baby not yet 1-month old left her homeless inside of a 12 weeks, coincidentally, the same time period allotted under the FMLA for women who have borne or adopted a child. Her homelessness then rendered her incapable of finding suitable alternative employment, as even if she could seek another position without email, a permanent address or even appropriate bathing and dressing facilities within which to prepare for a job interview, it was beyond challenging to find someone reliable to babysit in the NYC shelter system. Now, approximately 10 months since her firing, she is still homeless and unemployed but beginning to pick up the pieces as she is imminently poised to move into a permanent, city-assisted housing unit.

We are currently prosecuting this matter at the administrative level and will be filing a court complaint shortly. While our college-educated client would be happy to share her experiences with the readers, it is an unfortunate reality that too often, working women bearing children are discriminated against and terminated from gainful employment simply as a result of the choice to bear children, a common occurrence that inordinately befalls inner city single women with little or no safety net.

It would serve us all, and the children we ostensibly care so much about in our-no- child-left-behind culture of wishful thinking, if the spirit and intent of the "human rights" laws were applied in practice to the protection of pregnant women in the workplace. The following pages are informational regarding the scope of coverage for women facing differential treatment on the basis of pregnancy in NY and its environs (please click on the images to access the original size).

Detroit Free Press reports that a former business manager of Meadow Brook Hall is suing Oakland University in Auburn Hills on grounds of pregnancy discrimination. Sonia Jacobs, the employee who put in 50-65 hour every week to manage the financial hardships of the university was often praised for her hard work. But when she was pregnant, the university did not blink an eyelid before firing her citing that her medical complications were grounds which caused her to miss six days of work.

Jacobs said DFP: "Until it happens to you, you have no idea how being fired impacts your self confidence. Having to tell potential employers why I was fired was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

OU case is far from an aberration. Indeed, cases of pregnancy discrimination are rising at an alarmingly high rate within the deeply insensitive corporate workplace environments, and the trend continues to find sustenance in the current