The U.S. Supreme Court has voted 5-4 to make it more difficult for employees to sue their employers over harassment in the workplace.
In issuing its decision in Vance vs. Ball State University, the court Monday narrowed the definition of "supervisor" in the workplace to mean only those with the ability to hire and fire.
In doing so, the court ruled against Maetta Vance, a black catering assistant at Ball State who alleged that Saundra Davis, a white catering specialist, created a racially hostile work environment.
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As Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority's opinion, someone is only a supervisor "if he or she is empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim."
The decision is significant and has been eagerly anticipated in employment law circles since it was first argued before the court in November. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act makes it easier to hold a company accountable for workplace harassment if the harasser is considered a supervisor. If a harasser is merely a co-worker, the organization need only prove it was not negligent in dealing with any complaints.
Now there is clarity around the definition of supervisor, which before was ambiguous, governed only by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines, said Jose Klein, a Portland, Ore.-based employment law attorney.
In the wake of this decision, Klein said employers might begin to create positions that allow people to direct others but make clear those people do not have the power to take authoritative action, such as hiring, firing, granting raises, etc.
In the same 5-4 split, in the case of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the court endorsed a difficult standard in cases where a worker claims to be the victim of retaliation after complaining of unlawful discrimination.
The case involved the claims of Naiel Nassar, a Muslim doctor of Egyptian origin who was on the faculty of UT. Nassar claimed that Beth Levine, another UT faculty member, harassed him because of his race and religion, and called Middle Easterners lazy. Nassar further claimed that the attempts of Gregory Fitz, Levine's supervisor, to prevent Nassar from being hired at UT's affiliate hospital without still serving on the faculty, counted as retaliation against him for lodging the discrimination complaints.
In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said it was not enough for an employee to demonstrate that "the motive to discriminate was one of the employer's motives" in taking action against an employee.
Klein said in cases in which an employee protests what they believe to be discriminatory conduct on behalf of a co-worker and the employer then retaliates against them, the court ruled it's not enough for an employee to show a discriminatory motive.
Said Klein: "The burden now is squarely on the employee."
He added that, as always, employers are best served to prevent discrimination and retaliation through strong policies, frequent training and careful investigations of any complaints.
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