Sex Discrimination Claims Under Title Vii of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

SEX DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS UNDER TITLE VII OF THE

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

EDITED BY JAMIE BISHOP, EMMA D’ARPINO, GABRIELA GARCIA-BOU,

KELSEY HENDERSON, SOPHIE REBEIL, ELIZABETH RENDA, GABY URIAS, AND

NICHOLAS WIND

I. OVERVIEW: THE TITLE VII STATUTE ......................... 370

II. DISPARATE TREATMENT................................... 372

A. STATING A DISPARATE-TREATMENT CLAIM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

1. Discriminatory Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

2. Employer Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

a. Bona Fide Occupational Qualif‌ications . . . . . . . . . . 373

b. Mixed Motives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

c. Ellerth-Faragher Aff‌irmative Defense. . . . . . . . . . . . 375

3. Pretext Rebuttal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

B. INDIVIDUAL DISPARATE TREATMENT CLAIMS ................ 377

1. Hiring, Promotion, and Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

2. Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

3. Discharge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

4. Constructive Discharge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

5. Disciplinary Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

6. Retaliation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

C. SYSTEMIC DISPARATE TREATMENT ....................... 384

1. Formal Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

2. Pattern-and-Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

3. Employer’s Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

D. SEXUAL HARASSMENT ................................ 388

1. Prima Facie Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

a. Unwelcomeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

b. “Because of Sex” Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

2. Types of Sexual Harassment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

a. Quid Pro Quo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

b. Hostile Work Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

i. Non-Gender-Specif‌ic Conduct as a Hostile-

Work-Environment Claim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

ii. Hostile Work Environment for Both Males and

Females under a Single Employer . . . . . . . . . . 392

iii. Common Exposure to Sexually Offensive

Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

E. PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION ........................... 394

III. DISPARATE IMPACT ...................................... 395

369

A. ESTABLISHMENT OF DISPARATE IMPACT .................... 395

B. PLAINTIFF’S PRIMA FACIE CASE ......................... 396

C. EMPLOYER’S DEFENSE AND PLAINTIFF’S REBUTTAL ........... 397

IV. REMEDIES UNDER TITLE VII............................... 398

A. EMPLOYER LIABILITY UNDER TITLE VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

B. EQUITABLE REMEDIES ................................ 400

1. Back Pay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

2. Reinstatement and Front Pay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

3. Attorney’s Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

C. LEGAL REMEDIES ................................... 401

D. TIME LIMITATIONS .................................. 403

V. DEFINITION OF SEX ...................................... 404

A. PRICE WATERHOUSE AND SEX STEREOTYPING ............... 404

B. CURRENT TREATMENT OF TITLE VII CLAIMS BASED ON GENDER

IDENTITY DISCRIMINATION ............................. 405

VI. CHALLENGES FOR TITLE VII ............................... 406

A. EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST LGBT PERSONS . . . . . . . 407

B. “SEX-PLUS” CATEGORIES AND THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND

GENDER ......................................... 408

1. African-American Women and “Sex-Plus” . . . . . . . . . . . 409

2. African-American Men and “Sex-Plus”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

3. Sex-plus-Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

C. THE GENDER-NEUTRAL APPROACH AND THE REASONABLE-WOMAN

STANDARD ........................................ 410

D. CLASS ACTIONS .................................... 411

E. RELIGION AND TITLE VII ............................. 413

1. Religious Organization Exception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

2. Ministerial Exception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

VII. CONCLUSION .......................................... 415

I. OVERVIEW: THE TITLE VII STATUTE

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title

VII) marked the beginning of modern, broadly applicable anti-discrimination

law.

1

Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, race, and other

protected traits.

2

Although often sparking litigation, Title VII was meant “to

1. See LAWRENCE SOLOTOFF & HENRY S. KRAMER, SEX DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT

IN THE WORKPLACE 1–2 (2000).

2. See Civil Rights Act of 1964, tit. VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a) (West); see also Griggs v. Duke

Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 429–30 (1971) (noting congressional intent to promote parity in employment

opportunities).

370 THE GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF GENDER AND THE LAW [Vol. XXII:369

encourage informal conciliation and to foster voluntary compliance”

3

through

“the creation of antiharassment policies and effective grievance mechanisms.”

4

Amended several times,

5

Title VII currently makes it unlawful for an employer:

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise

to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compen-

sation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of

such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for

employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive

any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise

adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such indi-

vidual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

6

Title VII protects both men and women from sex discrimination in the work-

place. “‘Race’ and ‘sex’ are general terms that, in everyday usage, require modi-

f‌iers to indicate any relatively narrow application. We do not commonly

understand ‘race’ to refer only to the black race or ‘sex’ to refer only to the

female.’”

7

“Sex” was amended into the statute on the last day of the debate,

resulting in little to no legislative history to assist in statutory interpretation.

8

Sex-discrimination claims under Title VII fall within one of two broad catego-

ries: disparate treatment and disparate impact. Disparate treatment claims require

a plaintiff to show that they suffered unfavorable employment terms or conditions

or were subjected to discriminatory acts because of their sex.

9

Alternatively, dis-

parate impact claims allege that while employment practices were facially neu-

tral, they resulted in discriminatory effects on a protected class.

10

3. Stache v. Int’l Union of Bricklayers Allied Craftsmen, 852 F.2d 1231, 1234 (9th Cir. 1988), cert.

denied 493 U.S. 815 (1989).

4. Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 764 (1998).

5. See H.R. Rep. No. 102-40, pt. 1, at 4 (1991), as reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. 549, 550

(revealing that Congress sought to fortify “protections and remedies” available under Title VII); see also

H.R. Rep. No. 92-238, at 3 (1971), as reprinted in 1972 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2137, 2139 (noting that Congress

sought to equip the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with procedures necessary to counter

employment discrimination).

6. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). An employer is “a person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who

has f‌ifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the

current or preceding calendar year, and any agent of such a person,” with some stated exceptions. Id.

7. Gen. Dynamics Land Sys., Inc. v. Cline, 540 U.S. 581, 597–98 (2004).

8. AUGUSTUS B. COCHRAN III, SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND THE LAW 19–21 (Peter Charles Hoffer &

N. E. H. Hull eds., Univ. Press of Kan. 2004); HERMA HILL KAY & MARTHA S. WEST, SEX BASED

DISCRIMINATION: TEXT, CASES AND MATERIALS 552–53 (Thomson West, 6th ed. 1996).

9. See generally 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l).

10. See § 2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(i).

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