Exploring Racial Discrimination in the Case, Dunlap v. Tennessee Valley Authority

The Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit at the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. The verdict of the jury found the Defendant liable and was in favor of the Plaintiffs. Defendant then filed a motion for a new trial for judgment as a matter of law.

Mr. Vicks, with all due respect, the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed due to racial discrimination. As an organization, we are prohibited from making hiring decisions based on age; color; disability; genetic information; marital status; national origin; pregnancy; race; religion and sexual orientation (Mathis, 2017). Not to mention, if the applicant or employee can prove that they were denied employment or promotion based on their race, they can present a disparate treatment claim with EEOC, especially if he or she had the qualifications.

Further insight into this matter can be obtained through Rosenow’s (2014) research on disparate impact. Disparate impact results when a protected class — race, color, religion, sex or national origin — is impacted in a way that creates a disproportionate effect among the protected group. In addition, liability does not require malicious intent from the employer or knowledge of the occurrence of disparate impact. Therefore, the plaintiff must provide evidence of an employment policy that has an impact on the protected class. After the plaintiff shows prima facie, the employer must provide evidence that the employment policy is a necessary requirement for the business. In Dothard’s case, if the fire department proves the weight lifting requirement is indeed a business necessity then she must prove that the fire department refused an alternative strategy that would have met the business necessity.

In the workplace, racial profiling is often referred to as stereotyping. For example, sometimes employers do not judge a person on their skill level, but they use stereotyping as a form of judging them based on the color of their skin. This form of practice is wrong and can be unfair toward certain ethnic races because they will be focused on what people look like and what people in that race are known to do. This will give other people who may have lower qualifications a better chance to receive the job because they are stereotyped into a group that are “known” to have better characteristics for a certain job. On the other hand, this may allow people who are better qualified to lose this job position. There has been recent statistics that show that U.S. born Asians who have college degree on average have an 8% lower pay rate than American white men while first generation immigrants who have education completed overseas saw a 29% pay discrepancy (Racial Wage Gap in the United States). Some employers may argue that there is no factual evidence to support racial profiling does happen in and around the workplace. That is a false claim. There had been many incidents where there have been complaints about people having lower paying jobs, lacking the rights of promotion and being insulted by other managers. There has been an attempt to file an interesting kind of lawsuit. According to the Nashville Post, a group of employees

Disparate treatment is considered intentional discrimination. It is “treating similarly situated employees differently because of prohibited Title VII factors”. (Bennett-Alexander etal pp 95) Anheuser-Busch, Inc., v. Missouri Com’n on Human Rights, is an example of a prima facie disparate treatment case. In this case, an African-American woman was subjected to disciplinary action for committing the same infractions as three of her white co-workers. The employer failed to punish all of the employees alike and had no reasonable explanation for reviewing

Despite the laws and protections that have been established, workplace discrimination is still reported as a common occurrence in the U.S (Triana, Jayasinghe, & Pieper, 2015). The subsequent sections will examine a case of workplace discrimination as described by Monica Harwell, an African-American woman working for Con Edison, in New York. A consequent discussion of Monica’s account of discrimination evaluates the case in terms of

The Plaintiff, Cindy Pilon, felt that she was not considered for the position that she interviewed for because of her race. The position at hand was filled by and African-American male. The defendants moved for a summary of judgment claiming that they Plaintiffs race was not a factor in the decision of the hiring process for that

In the past, discriminatory practices interfered with recruiting and hiring diverse subjects to fill employment opportunities in America. Therefore, in 1964, legislation passed the Civil Rights Act to prohibit employers from discriminating based on race, color, sex, national origin or religion. Under the law enacted, it does not matter if the discrimination is intentional or unintentionally, and the burden of proof falls upon the defending agency to prove its hiring and recruiting practices are related to job performance. For example, the Baltimore police department excluded 95% female and 32% Hispanic men because of a 5’ 7” height restriction (Gaines & Kappeler).

In disparate impact theory, the plaintiff has to show that there was discrimination done by his employer. He has to show that discrimination was involved in his dismissal and not on the basis of his performance at work. The employer would be charged by the disparate impact theory if age, sex or racial discrimination is proven.

Supreme court cases have been some of the biggest and craziest cases around. The Supreme court does not only reflect the people of the nation but the government as well. I’m going to compare 2 cases, one from the past and one from last year. The amendment in question for both of the cases is the 14th amendment and has to do with marriage. To sum up the 14th amendment it's about equal justice and opportunity to succeed in life no matter who you are if you’re a US citizen. These two cases have had major impacts not only in the past but in the present day are Obergefell v. Hodges case about legalizing same sex marriage across all states and

In our history and lives, humans tend to judge others. If they think they are not like themselves, they are weird and judge them of what they are. This problem is affecting our society today and was a bigger problem in our history. Our society’s achilles’ heel is judging others and not accepting who they are.

As it can be seen from the calculations above, a clear pattern of discrimination has occurred in both the warehouse and store promotion decisions in 2008. In both cases, as well as in the overall combined promotion rates, black employees were consistently hired at a lower than acceptable rate than their white counterparts. Therefore, any black employees who applied for a promotion during 2008 may have a case for employment discrimination depending on their unique circumstances.

In today’s world, the American still has barriers to overcome in the matter of racial equality. Whether it is being passed over for a promotion at the job or being underpaid, some people have to deal with unfair practice that would prevent someone of color or the opposite sex from having equal opportunity at the job. In 2004, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Incorporation was a civil rights class-action suite that ruled in favor of the women who worked and did not received promotions, pay and certain job assignments. This proves that some corporations ignore the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects workers from discrimination based on sex, race, religion or national origin.

The Disparate treatment is a unique discrimination practice that is forbidden by the United States labor law. The disparate treatment implies a prejudiced conduct towards an individual because they belong to a protected class that is under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Primus, 2010). This differs with the disparate impact; it is under the circumstances that the organization implements nonaligned rules that treat everybody similarly in form. However, they prove to be a bit disadvantageous to the individuals in the protected classes (Schneider, 2010).

In this case the court ruled in favor of the transportation agency. Due to Affirmative Action the agency had a plan to “achieve a statistically measureable yearly improvement in hiring minorities and women throughout the agency in all major job classifications where they are underrepresented” (Bennett-Alexander, D., & Hartman, L. P.). During the time of a promotion a woman was promoted with a score of 73, which was lower than Johnsons score of 75. In turn the promotion was given to the female.