Employment Discrimination Lawsuits Research Articles

For Law and Markets: Employment Discrimination Lawsuits, Market Performance, and Managerial Diversity

Drawing on institutional theories of corporate response to the law, the authors investigate if and how employment discrimination litigation promotes gender and race equality among targeted firms. Using data on 171 high-profile sex and race discrimination lawsuits settled against publicly traded companies between 1997 and 2007, the authors estimate the impact of lawsuit resolutions on subsequent changes in managerial sex and race composition. Results show that the impact of lawsuit resolutions depends on the conditions surrounding the resolution. Lawsuit resolutions that produce a drop in stock prices for defendants, attract national media coverage, and mandate organizational policy changes improve white women’s, black women’s, and black men’s access to management, while those that involve costly monetary payouts have no or negative effects. These findings demonstrate how market and legal pressures interact to affect workplace practices and managerial diversity.

Mandating Change

Although complying with and monitoring court-mandated changes in organizations’ policies following employment discrimination lawsuits can be costly to both employers and taxpayers, little is known about the impact of such mandates on increasing sex and race managerial diversity in organizations. Using data on approximately 500 high-profile employment discrimination lawsuits resolved in U.S. federal courts between 1996 and 2008, the authors estimate the impact of court-mandated policy changes on shifts in the presence of white women, black women, and black men in managerial positions. Policies designed to reduce bias expand opportunities for white women but not for other demographic groups. By contrast, opportunities in management for all groups expand when policies are designed to increase organizational accountability by establishing specific recruitment, hiring, or promotion plans and monitoring arrangements. Policies designed to increase rights’ awareness are associated with declines in managerial diversity. Notably, compared with verdicts and settlements with modest penalties, those with the most costly monetary payouts do not expand managerial diversity; and in fact, they can backfire.

Employment Discrimination Lawsuits and Corporate Stock Prices

In this study, we examine the financial impact of employment discrimination lawsuit verdicts and settlements on publicly traded firms subject to lawsuits between 1997 and 2008. Using data on 174 sex and race discrimination lawsuits involving 107 publicly traded companies, we assess the effect of lawsuit verdicts and settlements on changes in defendants’ daily stock returns. Findings indicate that verdicts and settlements have an immediate negative impact on defendants’ stock prices. In addition, the negative effect is more pronounced among cases that involve monetary payouts, cases in which the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a plaintiff and cases that involve sex as opposed to race or national origin discrimination. These results demonstrate the extent to which legal rulings introduce a market penalty for employers and have implications for the study of law, organizations, and market responses to discriminatory behavior.

Title VII Sex and Race Discrimination Litigation Settlements as Opportunities for Organizational Change

This study investigated how frequently and under what circumstances Title VII lawsuit settlements resulted in mandates for substantive organizational change in HR policies and practices that, according to social science research, are likely to move beyond mere pro forma compliance to foster greater inclusion and equality. 502 consent decrees settling Title VII sex and race discrimination lawsuits in 200–2008 were collected, coded, and analyzed. Multinomial logistic regression was used. Sociological theories of organizational change and of the relationship between law and organizations informed the study. 48 % of the consent decrees examined specified no meaningful substantive changes; 31 % required formalization of personnel decision-making remedies; 21 % required more innovative measures. Certified class actions, other non-individual lawsuits, lawsuits filed in more liberal Federal District Courts, and public sector employer predicted more substantive remedies for organizational change in organizations’ EEO policies and practices, all else being equal. Single plaintiffs and a conservative District Court legal environment predicted a greater likelihood of pro forma only remedies. Discrimination lawsuit settlements are a potential impetus for improved diversity management policies. Consent decrees are an unusually direct and potentially powerful mechanism under Title VII for employment discrimination lawsuits to mandate substantive organizational change. Whereas a few studies have discussed a very small number of high-profile settlements, this is the first systematic examination of the programmatic mandates in consent decrees and how they vary.

Drafting and Implementing an Effective Social Media Policy

Social media is everywhere and used in many business and personal situations. There is no indication that social media use is declining; rather, social media use is constantly expanding into new realms and taking on new forms. Social media launches political campaigns, international pop stars, and new businesses to heightened levels of success or failure with just a few mouse clicks. Because social media information has the ability to spread rapidly, not addressing social media or hoping it will not affect the employer's business is a dangerous practice. Currently, few employers have a Social Media Policy ("Policy"). By not having a Policy, the employer and its business are left vulnerable to the whims of its employees' social media actions and cannot guide employees toward using social media to protect and further the employer's business purpose. A Policy's existence makes the employer proactive rather than reactive. Further, establishing a Policy provides employees with clear expectations about when social media can be used, for what purposes, and what level of privacy an employee should expect regarding personal use. Finally, the employer needs a Policy to promote consistent enforcement among all employees. Inconsistent actions by supervisors for similar employee actions could open the employer up to potential employment discrimination lawsuits. Once the employer understands that it needs a Policy, the next step is deciding what type to implement. The employer must create a Policy that furthers the employer's business purposes. Regardless of whether the employer decides to ban social media or freely allow its use, the employer should always spell it out in a Policy that defines the parameters of social media use. However, before the employer establishes a Policy it should conduct a cost-benefit analysis of social media uses and benefits for the employer versus the cost and resources required to enforce such a Policy. The employer should consider the Policy's monitoring and enforcement costs and the employee productivity costs depending on the level of allowed social media use. Taking into account these considerations, this Article will instruct an employer or employer's counsel on how to best draft an effective Policy that will meet all of the employer's objectives.

Situated Justice: A Contextual Analysis of Fairness and Inequality in Employment Discrimination Litigation

A substantial body of sociolegal scholarship suggests that the legitimacy of the law crucially depends on the public's perception that legal processes are fair. The bulk of this research relies on an underdeveloped account of the material and institutional contexts of litigants' perceptions of fairness. We introduce an analysis of situated justice to capture a contextualized conception of how litigants narrate fairness in their actual legal encounters. Our analysis draws on 100 in-depth interviews with defendant's representatives, plaintiffs, and lawyers involved in employment discrimination lawsuits, selected as part of a multimethod study of 1,788 discrimination cases filed in U.S. district courts between 1988 and 2003. This article offers two key empirical findings, the first at the level of individual perceptions and the second at the level of legal institutions. First, we find that neither defendants' representatives nor plaintiffs believe discrimination law is fair. Rather than sharing a complaint, however, each side sees unfairness only in those aspects of the process that work to their disadvantage. Second, we demonstrate that the very notion of fairness can belie structural asymmetries that, overall, profoundly benefit employers in employment discrimination lawsuits. We conclude by discussing how a situated justice analysis calls for a rethinking of empirical research on fairness. Audio recordings of respondents quoted in this article are available online.*

Curb Your Enthusiasm: A Note on Employment Discrimination Lawsuits in China

China’s legal system continues to struggle with the political and social complications of its rapid economic development. One of the more glaring tensions in the New China is the treatment of workers in a capitalist economy nested within a socialist political system. Curb Your Enthusiasm: A Note on Employment Discrimination Lawsuits in China is an article in a series of papers I am writing on the issue of employment discrimination in China. Research on employment discrimination is quite a recent thing in China, yet as early as in 2002, I was involved in several high-profile anti-discrimination cases and served as a legal counsel for plaintiff in one of them. I was also a participant in the initial employment discrimination research program in west China directed by Professor Zhou Wei of Sichuan University law school. The development in Chinese employment discrimination law excited many people. However, people might be easily misled by a few high-profile discrimination cases and the burgeoning scholarly interests on anti-discrimination into believing that employment discrimination issue is being very seriously and effectively dealt with through Chinese legal system. In fact, as my previous paper Employment Discrimination in China: Current Situations and Principle Challenges (Hamline Law Review, Volume 32 Winter 2009) as well as this paper has noted that even now employment discrimination is still prevalent in China. Despite continued employment discrimination in the Chinese workplace, few discrimination cases coming to Chinese courts. In this article, based on a survey administrated to judges from different courts in China, I argue that in spite of the enthusiastic anti-discrimination movement in China and despite the record setting volume of laws and regulations prohibiting employment discrimination, employment discrimination litigation remains unpopular and politically sensitive in China.

Ambivalence & Activism: Employment Discrimination in China

Chinese courts do not vigorously enforce many human rights, but a recent string of employment discrimination lawsuits suggests that, given the appropriate conditions, advocacy strategies, signals from above, and rights at issue, courts can help victims vindicate their constitutional and statutory rights to equality. Since 2008, carriers of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) have used the Employment Promotion Law to challenge hiring discrimination. Their high success rate suggests official support for making one potent form of discrimination illegal. Central to these lawsuits is a broad network of lawyers, activists and scholars who have advocated for protecting the rights of HBV carriers, suggesting a limited role for civil society actors in the field of law and policy.

Individual Justice or Collective Legal Mobilization? Employment Discrimination Litigation in the Post Civil Rights United States

This article analyzes the outcomes of employment discrimination lawsuits filed in federal court from 1988 to 2003. It goes beyond previous research by examining case filings rather than published opinions and by treating case outcome as a sequential variable. Our analysis is informed by four theoretical models: formal legal, rational action/economic, legal mobilization, and critical realist. We employ a discrete‐time event‐history model with random effects to estimate whether a case will end at a particular stage. We find that employment discrimination litigation consists overwhelmingly of individual cases, a majority of which end in a small settlement. The outcomes of cases are difficult to predict at the outset of litigation. Legal representation and collective legal mobilization have powerful effects on outcome, but collective legal mobilization is rare. These results are most consistent with the critical realist perspective. Our analysis suggests that employment discrimination litigation maintains law's jurisdiction over claims of workplace discrimination while not providing a significant remedy or an authoritative resolution in most cases.

Does Temporary Affirmative Action Produce Persistent Effects? A Study of Black and Female Employment in Law Enforcement

Abstract This paper exploits variation in the timing and outcomes of employment discrimination lawsuits against U.S. law enforcement agencies to estimate the cumulative and persistent employment effects of temporary externally imposed affirmative action (AA). We find that AA increased black employment at all ranks by 4.5 to 6.2 percentage points relative to national trends. We also find no erosion of these employment gains in the fifteen years following AA termination, although black employment growth was significantly lower in departments after AA ended than in departments whose plans continued. For women, in contrast, we find only marginal employment gains at lower ranks.

Lessons in Losing: Race and National Origin Employment Discrimination Litigation in Federal District Court

This paper provides a comprehensive, national examination of race and national origin employment discrimination lawsuits. Through empirical studies of 661 such cases, it discovers something previously not reported. While employment discrimination litigation is widely known for its lopsided outcomes - defendants overwhelmingly prevail - it turns out that race and national origin cases are even harder for plaintiffs to win in federal district court than other types of employment discrimination claims. In revealing that race and national origin cases are harder for plaintiffs to settle and easier for defendants to win on a pretrial motion, this Article identifies what it terms an anti-plaintiff ideology in race and national origin litigation. Through an examination of this anti-plaintiff ideology, the author attempts to shift the current debate over judicial decision making in employment discrimination litigation to one recognizing that courts do more than defer to defendants in race and national origin cases and are more than unable to prohibit subtle discrimination. Instead, courts appear to have an anti-plaintiff mind set against race and national origin plaintiffs.

Arbitration of Employment-discrimination Lawsuits: Legalities, Practicalities, and Realities

Arbitration of Employment-discrimination Lawsuits: Legalities, Practicalities, and Realities

Diagnosis of psychological impairment in employment discrimination claims

AbstractThe United States Supreme Court recently held that while psychological harm or injury is not a prerequisite to proof of liability in employment discrimination lawsuits, such harm or injury may be considered in determining employer liability. Other recent legal developments have also greatly expanded the opportunity for psychologists and other mental health professionals to contribute to determinations of both liability and damages in this legal context. This article briefly examines some of the aspects of workplace claims that evaluating mental health experts We need to address. Then the article focuses on the role of psychodiagnostic testing in the context of legal decisionmaking. Finally, the article points to gaps in knowledge regarding the role of psychodiagnostic testing in employment cases and suggests areas for future research on this timely but understudied topic.

Stratification and the Adjusted Chi-Square Statistic: Application to Analysis of Employment Discrimination Data

SYNOPTIC ABSTRACTIn this paper we describe and illustrate the concept of “stratification of data” to enhance inferential validity when evaluating rates in employment discrimination lawsuits. Stratification is a means of avoiding confounding effects when classes of employees are distributed differently with respect to variables that correlate with the main variable of interest (e.g., promotions). The summary chi-square statistic developed by Mantel and Haenszel may be helpful when data are stratified, but a threshold consideration of second-order interactions is required. Two alternatives to chi-square are considered, Fisher's exact test and Wilcoxon's signed-rank test. The problem of choosing the appropriate significance level is also considered, with a recommendation. Data from actual lawsuits are used in the illustrations.

Some Tips to Prevent Employment Discrimination Lawsuits: A Faith-Based Legal Guide for Managers, by David A. Robinson

Some Tips to Prevent Employment Discrimination Lawsuits: A Faith-Based Legal Guide for Managers, by David A. Robinson