Not all cases may be as easy to recognize as gender discrimination when making workplace decisions or policies. (See Exhibit 8.8, “Illegal or Unfair?”) It is easier to realize there is gender discrimination when the policy says “no women hired as guards” than when, as with

• Your responses should be well-rounded and analytical, and should not just provide a conclusion or an opinion without explaining the reason for the choice. For full credit, you need to use the material from the week’s lectures, text and/or discussions when responding to the questions.
• Utilize the case format below:

5. Read and understand the case. Show your Analysis and Reasoning and make it clear you understand the material. Be sure to incorporate the concepts of the chapter we are studying to show your reasoning. Dedicate at least one subheading to each following outline topic:

Facts [Summarize only those facts critical to the outcome of the case]

Issue [Note the central question or questions on which the case turns]

Explain the applicable law(s). Use the textbook here. The law should come from the same chapter as the case. Be sure to use citations from the textbook including page numbers.

Holding [How did the court resolve the issue(s)? Who won?]

Reasoning [Explain the logic that supported the court’s decision]

6. Dedicate 1 subheading to each of the case questions immediately following the case. First, restate the question and then fully answer.
7. Wrap up with a Conclusion. This should summarize the key aspects of the decision and also your recommendations on the court’s ruling.
8. Include citations and a reference page with your sources. Use APA style citations and references
9. Case 1

Not all cases may be as easy to recognize as gender discrimination when making workplace decisions or policies. (See Exhibit 8.8, “Illegal or Unfair?”) It is easier to realize there is gender discrimination when the policy says “no women hired as guards” than when, as with the Dothard v. Rawlinson case (given at the end of the chapter), there is a policy, neutral on its face, saying all applicants must meet certain height and weight requirements to be guards, yet due to their genetic differences, statistically, most women do not generally meet the requirements. In the Dothard case, for the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court was faced with whether Title VII’s gender discrimination provision applied to the seemingly neutral criteria of height and weight restrictions, which had long been an accepted basis for screening applicants for certain types of jobs such as prison guards, police officers, and firefighters, even though there was little or no legitimate reason for the criteria. The Court decided that Title VII did, in fact, apply to such facially neutral policies when they screened out women (later cases extended this standard to shorter and slighter ethnicities as well) at an unacceptable rate and were not shown to be directly correlated to ability to do the job.

Case 2

Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson was the first sexual harassment case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case, which is provided at the conclusion of the chapter, the branch manager of a bank engaged in sexually harassing activity with the harassee, up to and including sex in the bank vault. The harassee finally took a leave of absence and was terminated for excessive leave. When she sued for sexual harassment, the employer argued that since she engaged in the sexual activity, the activity did not meet the “unwanted” requirement of the guidelines. The Supreme Court disagreed. In addition, the employer argued that since the harassee lost no raises or promotions, she lost no tangible job benefits, so it was not quid pro quo sexual harassment. Read the case and see if you can now distinguish between quid pro quo and hostile environment sexual harassment.

In Meritor, it is clear that the supervisor’s actions changed the terms and conditions of Vinson’s employment. There is a big difference between the ongoing, pervasive actions of Vinson’s supervisor and merely giving someone an occasional nonsexual compliment as in Opening Scenario 2. In a hostile environment action, the activity must be more than someone committing a boorish, stupid, inappropriate act. The act must come up to the standards the courts and the EEOC have set forth for the cause of action. Contrary to what you may have been led to believe by the press or other information you’ve received, not every act, even if it is unwanted or offensive, will meet that standard; thus, not every act, though considered offensive by the employee, constitutes sexual harassment as set forth by law. (See Exhibit 9.5, “Jones v. Clinton.”)

Case 3

Macy is an excellent way to see how the EEOC finally came to the position it did based on the precedent established by the Supreme Court’s Price Waterhouse (outlawing gender stereotyping) and Oncale (permitting claims for same-gender sexual harassment) decisions and federal district court decisions. The Seventh Circuit’s decision in Hively v. Ivy Tech is also offered at the end of the chapter as an excellent read on how this federal circuit court of appeals also came to determine that sexual orientation is a type of gender discrimination prohibited by Title VII. It can be worrisome in a system of checks and balances where each of the three separate branches of government has a distinct role to play, to have courts step outside of their role as interpreters of law and take over the legislature’s role as creators of law. Congress had many times declined to include the LGBT category in Title VII. But, the EEOC did so, and courts did too. It is imperative to read the cases to see how they came to their decisions and how doing so is not only within their authority, but makes perfect sense given the precedent with which they were faced.