Understanding Discrimination In Employment Law

It is no secret that since the 1980s, American workers have lost power vis-à-vis employers through the well-chronicled steep decline in private sector unionization. American workers have also lost power in other ways. Those alleging employment discrimination have fared increasingly poorly in the courts. In recent years, judges have dismissed scores of cases in which workers presented evidence that supervisors referred to them using racial or gender slurs. In one federal district court, judges dismissed more than 80 percent of the race discrimination cases filed over a year. And when juries return verdicts in favor of employees, judges often second guess those verdicts, finding ways to nullify the jury's verdict and rule in favor of the employer. Most Americans assume that that an employee alleging workplace discrimination faces the same legal system as other litigants. After all, we do not usually think that legal rules vary depending upon the type of claim brought. The employment law scholars Sandra A. Sperino and Suja A. Thomas show in Unequal that our assumptions are wrong. Over the course of the last half century, employment discrimination claims have come to operate in a fundamentally different legal system than other claims. It is in many respects a parallel universe, one in which the legal system systematically favors employers over employees. A host of procedural, evidentiary, and substantive mechanisms serve as barriers for employees, making it extremely difficult for them to access the courts. Moreover, these mechanisms make it fairly easy for judges to dismiss a case prior to trial. Americans are unaware of how the system operates partly because they think that race and gender discrimination are in the process of fading away. But such discrimination still happens in the workplace, and workers now have little recourse to fight it legally. By tracing the modern history of employment discrimination, Sperino and Thomas provide an authoritative account of how our legal system evolved into an institution that is inherently biased against workers making rights claims.

Consists of interviews with American professors.

Reduces the language of court opinions into plain English and trims off extraneous topics to provide a succinct guide to what is and is not legal. No dates are noted for earlier editions; the fourth accounts for new procedures and remedies and the extension of discrimination law to include sexual harassment, affirmative action, age, and disability. Review questions and an instructor's manual available support use as a course text. Case updates are available on the Web. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"The U.S. civil court system consists of three levels: 1) District Courts ("Trial Courts"), 2) Circuit Courts of Appeal ("appellate courts") and 3) the Supreme Court (see Figure 1.1). The United States has a total of 94 districts, representing distinct geographic regions (see Table 1.1). The number of districts varies by state. For instance, some states have only one district (e.g., Arizona, Colorado, Delaware), while others have multiple districts, such as California, Florida, and Michigan (e.g., Southern District of California, Central District of California)"--

Presenting the issues of discrimination in employment in a multifaceted manner, this book examines the standards on anti-discrimination law for employment at international and EU levels and those deriving from national jurisdictions. Bringing together top scholars in the field of anti-discrimination employment law, this book explains the conceptual and theoretical foundations of the principle of non-discrimination in employment and assesses the most significant changes to law and ongoing challenges in the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Switzerland and Israel. Identifying emerging trends in anti-discrimination employment law, this book offers a comparative, problem-solving approach and an in-depth analysis of new developments in both anti-discrimination statutory law and case law. Addressing employment law with a focus on anti-discrimination law and human rights law, this book will be essential reading for students, academics and practitioners working in the fields of labour and employment law, anti-discrimination law and human rights law and offers an international comparative overview of the most up-to-date issues relating to discrimination.