Supreme Court Employment Discrimination Case Broadens Protection against Retaliation
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 7/12/2006
Employees who are suspended without pay or reassigned to less desirable job duties in retaliation for reporting discrimination have been afforded enhanced protections by the Supreme Court.On June 22, in a unanimous decision in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway v. Sheila White, the Court held that White's employer had taken sufficiently adverse action against her to satisfy her civil rights claim.
Sheila White, the only woman forklift operator in her department at Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway, was demoted and placed on unpaid leave for 37 days after she. complained of sexual harassment
Civil rights groups are applauding the 9-0 decision, which adopts a broad definition of retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen G. Breyer defined unlawful retaliation as any "materially adverse" action on the part of employers that "might dissuade" an employee from reporting discrimination. Justice Alito, who concurred in the judgment, wrote a separate opinion calling for more limited retaliation protection.
Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center (NWLC), said that "If the Court had upheld the standard urged by the railroad and the administration, it would have created a hole in civil rights protections big enough to drive a forklift through." Instead, Greenberger said, the decision "reaffirms that Title VII means what it says."
While the case dealt specifically with sex discrimination observers say the decision will also have implications for other types of employment discrimination cases
"This decision is an important win for workers around the country," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights . "The Supreme Court affirmed what we have always known - that there are many ways besides termination to retaliate against an employee who reports discrimination."
White's lawsuit alleged that her employer's actions were unlawful retaliation, even though she had been reinstated with back pay. The Supreme Court took up the case after the railway appealed a lower court decision supporting White.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin and prohibits retaliation. Lower courts had differed on the interpretation of the anti-retaliation provision of the statute.
"[T]he Court has reaffirmed the very basic but vital premise that without protecting employees' rights to complain about violations of the law, the rights themselves become meaningless," said Michael L. Foreman, director of the Employment Discrimination Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Under Law, who filed an amicus brief in support of a broad definition of retaliation.
