- More boxes get banned: Connecticut measure will ban asking age on job applications [Daniel Schwartz]
- In closely divided en banc ruling, Ninth Circuit rules it cruel and unusual punishment for prison authorities to deny inmate sex-reassignment surgery [en banc opinion and panel decision; Josh Blackman on a dissent authored by Judge Patrick Bumatay; I was quoted last year in public radio coverage of the Adree Edmo case]
- “Fear And Loathing At The Department Of Labor: Has The OFCCP Become A Law Unto Itself?” [Cory Andrews, WLF, more]
- “Look for the Union Label, not the Gender Role” [Sarah Skwire]
- Freedom means freedom for everyone: joined by Prof. Eugene Volokh, Cato files First Amendment amicus brief on behalf of Colorado graphic/web designer who objects to working on same-sex weddings [Ilya Shapiro and James Knight on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, Tenth Circuit]
- CBS News misrepresents the state of pregnancy-accommodation law in the workplace [Jon Hyman]
Posts Tagged ‘sex discrimination’
California gender board quotas, cont’d
Securities and Exchange Commissioner Hester Peirce has some critical comments on the California legislation signed by outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown last year requiring corporations to adopt gender quotas in the composition of their board of directors. She notes that research may not support one of the law’s stated rationales, that of improving financial results through better corporate governance, and that the law proposes to “micromanage an aspect of corporate governance that corporations, boards, and shareholders seem perfectly capable of handling on their own.” Relatedly, if women directors have an effect on corporate governance that is any different from men’s, it may relate to factors other than their gender [Tyler Cowen on Alam, Chen, Ciccotello, and Ryan paper] More: Federalist Society teleforum with Anastasia Boden, Keith Paul Bishop on unanswered questions about the law’s application. Earlier, including the law’s doubtful constitutionality, here, here, and here.
Medical roundup
- Wild scandal of Malibu rehab-center guru charged with alleged $176 million insurance fraud has roots in the artificial conditions imposed by federal law [Chris Edwards, Cato]
- “A new Trump executive order on kidneys could save thousands of lives” [Dylan Matthews/Vox via Alex Tabarrok]
- Advocates have long campaigned to change the law so as to allow medical malpractice suits by service members against the U.S. military. Are they getting close? [Roxana Tiron and Travis J. Tritten, Bloomberg Law; James Clark/Task & Purpose] New study of defensive medicine, extrapolated from data reflecting military immunity, finds “suggestive evidence that liability immunity reduces inpatient spending by 5 percent with no measurable negative effect on patient outcomes.” [Michael Frakes and Jonathan Gruber, American Economic Journal via Scott Sumner]
- Meanwhile, said to be new record: Baltimore jury awards $229 million in claim of obstetric brain injury that Johns Hopkins says is “not supported by the evidence” [Tim Prudente, Baltimore Sun via Saurabh Jha (“My guess is that this verdict won’t reduce the frequency of C-sections in the US”)] “Best & Worst States for Doctors” [John S. Kiernan, WalletHub]
- It might not always improve outcomes in a hard science like medicine to rethink every issue through an “equity lens.” Case in point: differing male and female rates of heart disease [Anish Koka, Quillette]
- “Medical Malpractice Reform: What Works and What Doesn’t” [W. Kip Viscusi, forthcoming Denver Law Review]
Higher education roundup
- Harvard lawprof Ronald Sullivan Jr. driven from post as faculty dean of a residential house at the university after student protests of his representation of Harvey Weinstein [Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker; Dianna Bell, WBUR; and for a different perspective Tyler Cowen] Stuart Taylor, Jr. has some questions about Harvard’s investigation, on charges of sexual misconduct, of noted economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. [Real Clear Investigations] 30 protesters rush the stage, ending Harvard President Lawrence Bacow’s speech: “The heckler’s veto has no place” [Robby Soave, Reason]
- Rules mandating gender quotas in hiring committees at French universities may have backfired, as “committees affected by the quota were significantly less likely to hire women” [Chris Woolston, Nature]
- Maryland lawmaker proposes collective bargaining for student athletes [Bruce DePuyt, Maryland Matters]
- “…and suggested that Plaintiff obtain an expensive genetic test to see if she could qualify as Native American or American Indian to garner better chances of being accepted to” the professional school [John S. Rosenberg, Minding the Campus] Families of wealth and standing have special reason to dislike standardized testing. But they’re quite good at dressing up their resentments as progressive [Daniel Friedman, Quillette]
- “Does Yale Law School’s Antidiscrimination Policy on Subsidies for Student Employment Discriminate on the Basis of Religion? [Ilya Somin, who concludes that it doesn’t]
- This year, as every year, checking the line-up of commencement speakers provides a handy way to size up the Forces of Unanimity on the American campus [Keith Whittington]
Does existing law ban workplace bias against gays? SCOTUS will decide
My new post at Cato covers the Supreme Court’s decision to resolve three cases in which it is argued that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act bans private workplace discrimination against gay and transgender employees. I cite a 2017 Seventh Circuit showdown on the question between Judges Richard Posner and Diane Sykes: “These philosophical divides on statutory interpretation — which of course play out every term in lower-profile cases — are likely to be on the Court’s mind next fall.” More: Jared Odessky, On Labor (rounding up commentary).
Discrimination law roundup
- Internal Google pay study “found, to the surprise of just about everyone, that men were paid less money than women for doing similar work.” [Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times] “What the Data Say About Equal Pay Day” [Chelsea Follett, Cato; Hans Bader]
- Otherwise routine on-the-job injuries can have dire consequences for those suffering hemophilia, and a manufacturing company learns its “insurance costs could spike” as a result if it employs three hemophiliac brothers. Don’t think you can turn them away for a reason like that, says EEOC [commission press release on ADA settlement with Signature Industrial Services, LLC involving $135,000 payment and “other significant relief”]
- Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon to pay $100,000 settlement to black worker who says she was retaliated against after complaining about “Blue Lives Matter” flag [Aimee Green, Oregonian; Blair Stenvick, Portland Mercury]
- “The social justice madness of college campuses is now seeping into HR departments of large employers. The result is the rise of the woke corporation, and it might affect the way you work” [Toby Young, Spectator (U.K.)]
- “The FDNY’s diversity monitor has cost the city $23 million in 7 years” [Susan Edelman, New York Post]
- Before taking an exam required of federal employees in Canada, best to study up on intersectionality theory [Josh DeHaas on Twitter, GBA+, Tristin Hopper/National Post]
Discrimination law roundup
- New EEOC chief data officer says machine learning algorithms may soon enable agency to predict, and deploy resources against, workplace bias before it happens [Paige Smith, Bloomberg Law]
- “The BSO, in a statement, defended its pay structure, saying that the flute and oboe are not comparable, in part because the oboe is more difficult to play and there is a larger pool of flutists.” [Geoff Edgers, Washington Post/Allentown Morning Call]
- Even they can’t comply: “The case was ironic since the commission is charged with eliminating discrimination in Pennsylvania.” [Matt Miller, PennLive, on the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission’s jury loss in a race discrimination complaint] “Do as they say, not as they do: employees accuse Planned Parenthood of pregnancy discrimination” [Jon Hyman]
- Fourth Circuit: maybe Title VII doesn’t create a right to swipe files from HR [Jon Hyman]
- Although libertarians support legalizing marijuana, they should not support laws that bar employers from discriminating on the basis of marijuana use [Jeffrey Miron, Cato]
- “Why do women earn less than men? Evidence from train and bus operators” [Valentin Bolotnyy and Natalia Emanuel via Tyler Cowen]
- Minnesota jury orders women’s football team and league to pay $20,000 to transgender applicant turned away [Mary Lynn Smith, Minneapolis Star Tribune]
California: “Lawyer, wife convicted in extortion plot against businesses”
“A California attorney and his wife were convicted of engaging in a scheme to extort minority, immigrant-owned businesses.” [Associated Press] “[Rogelio] Morales and [Mireya] Arias engaged in a scheme in 2016 to file ‘meritless gender discrimination lawsuits to pressure minority business owners into giving them thousands of dollars in alleged “settlements,”‘ a prosecution trial brief said. Prosecutors said Morales and Arias would obtain services from the small businesses they targeted — salons or dry cleaners — and if they were charged differently for the same service, they would file a lawsuit claiming a violation of a California anti-discrimination law, prosecutors said.” [Richard K. De Atley, Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.)]
“For obvious reasons, few will talk openly about the issue.”
Stepped-up litigation and reputational risks from charges of sexual misbehavior are changing employer policies in predictable ways:
Privately, though, many of the men interviewed acknowledged they’re channeling Pence, saying how uneasy they are about being alone with female colleagues, particularly youthful or attractive ones, fearful of the rumor mill or of, as one put it, the potential liability.
A manager in infrastructure investing said he won’t meet with female employees in rooms without windows anymore; he also keeps his distance in elevators. A late-40-something in private equity said he has a new rule, established on the advice of his wife, an attorney: no business dinner with a woman 35 or younger.
“If men avoid working or traveling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment,” he said, “those men are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex discrimination complaint.”
[Gillian Tan and Katia Porzecanski, Bloomberg quoting Stephen Zweig, an employment attorney with FordHarrison.] For an earlier round of these issues, see this 2015 post.
October 31 roundup
- Attempts to ban digital contraband are often fated to be both intrusive and futile [J.D. Tuccille]
- “The Gender Pay Gap: Why We Fight The Narrative” [Ryan Bourne, Cato]
- “He’s Back! Steven Wise’s Nonhuman Rights Project Seeks Habeas Corpus For An Elephant” [Ted Folkman, Letters Blogatory, Wise’s previous go and generally]
- Regulatory battles between hotel industry and AirBnB spread across U.S. [Robert McCartney, Washington Post]
- Concept of international human rights “has been swept into a broad river of campaigns for social justice, global economic development, environmental protection, multiculturalism, tolerance, access to water and sanitation, and more” and diluted in the process [James Kirchick, Commentary on new Aaron Rhodes book The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of Freedom; Cato forum from May with Rhodes, Kirchick, Roger Pilon, and Ian Vasquez; Rhodes interview with John Couretas and Caroline Roberts, Acton Institute]
- “Pro-tip from the Third Circuit for attorneys requesting fees: Don’t have a single-spaced, 6- to 8-point font, 44-page fee petition including ‘hundreds of inappropriate, unethical entries that would likely be illegal if billed to a client.’ You might find yourself facing no fees, a sanction, and a referral to the attorney disciplinary board.” [John K. Ross, IJ Short Circuit, on Young v. Smith]