Backward Step for Civil Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court has imposed a huge burden of proof on employees who believe the boss discriminated against them on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or gender.
A divided court ruled 5 to 4 that workers can no longer prove unlawful job discrimination by showing that the boss lied when explaining grounds for dismissal. Lower courts had presumed discrimination from an employer’s failure to give a truthful explanation of why a worker had been denied a promotion or fired. That standard was fair on the ground that a boss who had nothing to hide had no reason to lie. That test was also realistic because few workers have direct evidence of discrimination.
Workers must now produce a “smoking gun,” for example a memo that few bosses would be stupid enough to write.
An employee also could substantiate a claim with statements or witnesses; that too is an unfair test. Even if a supervisor were foolish enough to admit to discrimination, few employees would be willing to repeat those damning statements in court for fear of jeopardizing their own jobs.
Justice David H. Souter got it right in his dissent. He wrote that the majority had abandoned “two decades of stable law” to reach a result that would be “unfair to plaintiffs, unworkable in practice and inexplicable in forgiving employers who present false evidence in court.” In plainer language, the ruling penalizes victims of job discrimination and helps bosses who lie in court. Is that what the majority really intended? It certainly isn’t what Congress intended when it passed federal civil rights laws.
One more vote would have preserved existing protections. Where was Justice Clarence Thomas on this important case, in which a black prison guard challenged his dismissal? As a former chairman of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Thomas should know about the insidious nature of job discrimination. It no longer comes announced. Yet Thomas--the only African-American on the high court--voted with the majority.
Once again the U.S. Supreme Court has turned back the clock on civil rights in the workplace. Once again Congress must reverse the damage and guarantee equal rights for all Americans.
