Extract
Sex Discrimination
Five topics in Title VII law largely or exclusively concern claims of sex discrimination: the exception for bona fide occupational qualifications; classifications on the basis of pregnancy; comparable pay for comparable work; sex-segregated actuarial tables; and sexual harassment.
Bona Fide Occupational QualificationsSection 703(e)(1) allows classifications on the basis of "religion, sex, or national origin in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise."[293] It does not allow classifications on the basis of race. The principal application of the bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) exception has been to sex-based classifications.Both of the Supreme Court decisions on the BFOQ exception under Title VII have emphasized that it should be narrowly construed, although one held that the BFOQ exception applied to the position in dispute and the other held that it did not. In the first case, Dothard v.Rawlinson,[294] the Court held that women could be excluded from positions as prison guards in close contact with male inmates in the Alabama prison system. The Court reasoned that female prison guards would be in danger of sexual assault, at least in the extreme conditions of the prisons in Alabama, which had been held to violate the Eighth Amendment in an unrelated case.[295] The danger of sexual assault would have threatened the general security of the prisons by undermining control over the prison population.[296] The risk posed by the hiring of female prison guards involved more than risks of sexual assault to the women themselves, who would have been able to evaluate these risks for themselves in taking the job.In Dothard, the Court quoted, but did not explicitly endorse, two tests for applying the BFOQ exception, ...See the full content of this document
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