A setback for discrimination victims
The Supreme Court ruled today that victims of sexual or racial discrimination have only six months to file a complaint after the very first act of discrimination occurs. If a worker is denied a pay raise based on sex or race, they must file within that time frame for the claim to be valid, regardless of how long it takes them to become aware of the discrimination:
The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 15 men, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority.
The court held today that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.
This outlandish (and not surprisingly 5-4) decision is an officious, picayune method of derailing discrimination complaints:
In a vigorous dissenting opinion that she read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.
Of course that's true, and of course that's the reason the majority ruled the way they did. The full decision is here.
This decision is an odious smackdown to women and minorities. Thankfully, the issue was not framed as a Constitutional question, but rather one of statutory interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That means Congress can override this decision by passing an appropriate law that amends Title VII. We'll have to wait for a non-Bush president to see such a correction signed into law, but at least we're not hamstrung by the reactionary majority on the Court.