Supreme Court Preserves Right to Challenge Subtle Forms of Age Bias
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 3/31/2005
The Supreme Court held Wednesday that employers may be liable for age discrimination when they use practices that, while appearing neutral, actually disproportionately harm older workers.The case involved the interpretation of the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which protects workers above age 40 from discrimination by any employer with more than 20 employees.
The Court's main ruling in Smith v. City of Jackson makes it clear that older workers need not prove intentional discrimination in order to prevail under the ADEA, thus resolving a split in the federal courts. Some lower courts had interpreted the ADEA more narrowly, imposing a much higher standard of proof for age discrimination than is required for other types of discrimination.
"This is a major shot-in-the-arm in our fight to eliminate age discrimination in the workplace," said AARP Senior Attorney Laurie McCann. "Most employers are not going to throw out smoking gun evidence that they are discriminating against older workers."
A more subtle form of age discrimination - disparate impact - was in question in the Jackson case. It involves employment policies or practices that are on the surface neutral in that they do not mention age, but in fact fall more harshly on older workers. An example would be a school district announcing a policy that it would not hire any new teachers with more than 10 years of teaching experience.
Older workers still have a high threshold to prove their claims, because the ADEA, unlike the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans sex, race, or religious discrimination, offers employers a defense in age bias cases "where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age."
While ruling with the Jackson plaintiffs--a group of police officers over age 40 who claimed that the city of Jackson gave larger increases to employees under age 40--on the legal issue, the Court nonetheless dismissed their case, 8-0, because their employer had an "unquestionably reasonable" explanation for their policy.
Joining Justice John Paul Stevens in the main holding of the case were Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer.
Three justices--Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony M. Kennedy--would not have permitted disparate impact claims under the ADEA. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist did not participate in the decision.
