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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