title vii

Subscribe to title vii

Let’s play the “law school hypothetical” game for a minute.  (I know, not as exciting as a cat being chosen in Monopoly, but bear with me.)

You hear the following allegations:

  • An gay, male employee starts works as a teacher in an “New Beginnings Alternative” program at a public school.
  • During his employment, he is subject to derogatory statements by a fellow teacher, a school police officer and a supervisor.
  • Allegedly a supervisor tells a social worker that the employee is “too flaming” or “too flamboyant”. Also, a fellow teacher is alleged to have said to the employee at a department meeting that “You are so overdramatic, you are being a bitch just like a woman.”
  • The employee is criticized for not being a “team player” and that his “apparent proneness towards using sarcasm and humor (that is often not understood by others) must change.”
  • The employee believes that the supervisor’s comments regarding how he and others cannot understand the employee’s sense of humor “stems from their divergent social views and pervasive stereotypes on gender and sexuality.”
  • Ultimately, the employee is informed that his contract may not be renewed which does, in fact, lead to a non-renewal of the contract.

Assuming, as you must for the moment, that the allegations are all true, does the employee have any claims? If so, what are they?…

Continue Reading Can Being Called “Too Flamboyant” Be Basis for State Gender Discrimination Claim?

Over the last week, two unrelated stories caught my eye.  For employers, they are a reminder that claims of pay inequality based on gender are still something to be concerned about. 

Photo Courtesy Library of Congress c. 1943

The first story is that Governor Malloy announced plans for a new study to examine “factors that contribute to the gender wage gap in Connecticut’s workforce.” 

The study will be run by  new Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner Sharon Palmer and Department of Economic Development Commissioner Catherine Smith.  The Governor has asked the commissioners to make recommendations on the issue by October 2013.   

I’ve talked about this issue before; there are some who believe that the wage gap is overstated.  But the study will make headlines this year and this renewed focus in Connecticut on the issue should have employers revisiting their own practices.

The second story illustrates the claim in much more real world terms and shows the perils of trying to navigate your way through such claims. 

In Morse v. Pratt & Whitney, decided last week, a federal court — among other issues — denied an employer’s motion for summary judgment on an Title VII unequal pay claim.…

Continue Reading Gender Inequality Claims Make Headlines in Case and in New Study

Everyone knows that taxes are inevitable.  Except perhaps one employee who won his Title VII case but complained that the employer shouldn’t have made withholdings for taxes when it paid out the judgment.  The Second Circuit, in a decision released right before the Labor Day weekend, said the employer did the right thing.

You can…

Over the years, I’ve openly questioned whether the CHRO has been improperly awarding emotional distress damages and attorneys fees in employment discrimination claims.  

Indeed, back in February 2009, I noted “Nearly 15 years ago, the Connecticut Supreme Court came out with a pair of decisions that seemed to put to rest the question of…

The Office of Legislative Research, whom I’ve praised in several posts before (here and here), recently issued a report on the consequences of a felony conviction on employment. 

Overall, it does a good job summarizing the issues when it comes to state employment.

But later on in the publication it states the following…

The EEOC yesterday released important new guidance for employers on the use of arrest and conviction records by employers under Title VII.  You can read the guidance here as well as a short question-and-answer document too. 

For employers in Connecticut, this new guidance only adds to the state-specific rules we have here in state and…

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today gave some teeth to the “ministerial exception” that, in essence, precludes some employees of religious institutions from suing them under federal discrimination laws.

I’ve discussed the exception in various posts over the years here and here.  Its been supported in the Second Circuit and by the Connecticut Supreme Court, but until now, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t spoken directly on the issue.  The SCOTUS blog has already posted its recap of the entire case here.

SCOTUS: Broad ministerial exception applies

My quick reaction to the decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC (download here), is that the notion of a “ministerial exception” being recognized by the Supreme Court isn’t that much of a surprise.  To find otherwise, as the Court stated in its opinion, would be untenable and go against all of the Courts of Appeals.  “We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.”

Indeed, the court concludes:

We agree that there is such a ministerial exception. The members of a religious group put their faith in the hands of their ministers. Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.

What is more notable is that there appears to be a broad definition of who is a “minister”.   (And, to state the obvious, rabbis and the like are obviously included). The court took pains to point out that it hasn’t adopted “a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.”  But it concluded that “given all the circumstances of her employment”, it applies here.…

Continue Reading BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court Supports Fairly Broad “Ministerial Exception” to Anti-Discrimination Laws

Last week, a federal district court in Connecticut held that the Department of Corrections violated federal law in instituting a discriminatory physical fitness test that created a disparate impact on women.  It also found that the test was not job-related or necessary.  

In doing so, the court granted summary judgment to the employee…