Introduction To The Law Of Employment Discrimination

This new edition of An Introduction to the Law of Employment Discrimination summarizes the federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, age, and disability. Several major statutes, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Equal Pay Act, protect American workers from discrimination. In this handy reference guide, Michael Evan Gold discusses complex legislation in lucid, understandable terms. In his discussion of each statute, the author provides such information as: who is protected by the statute; who must obey the statute; principal definitions of discrimination together with numerous examples; ways of proving discrimination; reasonable accommodation; defenses to discrimination; retaliation; remedies; and procedures for bringing a claim.

Employment Discrimination Law is an innovative new skills-based text designed for flexible use. To add a skills component to lecture courses, it can be used in conjunction with traditional casebooks, and is also an ideal text for a free-standing practicum or seminar. Employment Discrimination Law functions as a "course in a box" providing readers with basic background law, including constitutional and statutory law governing the employment relationship; general drafting principles important to lawyers in any field as well as an overview of drafting issues specific to employment discrimination law; an introduction to the key research strategies and sources; an overview of the ethical issues likely to arise; and a solid preview of client counseling, negotiation strategy, and preventative lawyering. The text features a combination of text, sample documents, checklists, charts, and exercises. These well-crafted exercises, for students to complete individually or in groups, range from discrete questions to be researched and answered in a 5-minute small-group class session to much more detailed problems that could serve as final evaluative documents. Employment Discrimination Law is an innovative new skills-based text designed for flexible use. To add a skills component to lecture courses, it can be used in conjunction with traditional casebooks, and is also an ideal text for a free-standing practicum or seminar. Employment Discrimination Law functions as a "course in a box" providing readers with basic background law, including constitutional and statutory law governing the employment relationship; general drafting principles important to lawyers in any field as well as an overview of drafting issues specific to employment discrimination law; an introduction to the key research strategies and sources; an overview of the ethical issues likely to arise; and a solid preview of client counseling, negotiation strategy, and preventative lawyering. The text features a combination of text, sample documents, checklists, charts, and exercises. These well-crafted exercises, for students to complete individually or in groups, range from discrete questions to be researched and answered in a 5-minute small-group class session to much more detailed problems that could serve as final evaluative documents.

"An Introduction to Labor and Employment Discrimination Law is not an attempt to teach law to undergraduates, but rather to introduce them to legal reasoning. The principal means to this end are cases that present competing arguments (e.g., in majority and dissenting opinions) on major issues. Each case is preceded by the author's introduction and followed by the author's comments and questions. Chapter 1 focuses on labor law in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, i.e., before the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Chapter 2 surveys modern labor law under the Labor Act, covering such topics as representation and unfair labor practices. Chapter 3 is a brief introduction to the law of employment discrimination under the Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Americans With Disabilities Act. The book is accompanied by an appendix that contains a glossary of legal terms plus excerpts from the Constitution and relevant federal statutes"--Textbook Web page.

An Introduction to Labor Law is a useful and course-tested primer that explains the basic principles of the federal law regulating the relationship of employers to labor unions. In this updated third edition, which features a new introduction, Michael Evan Gold discusses the law that applies to union organizing and representation elections, the duty to bargain in good faith, economic weapons such as strikes and lockouts, and the enforcement of collective bargaining agreements. Gold describes the structure and functions of the National Labor Relations Board and of the federal courts in regard to labor cases and also presents a number of legal issues presently in contention between labor and management.

It is no secret that since the 1980s, American workers have lost power vis-à-vis employers through the well-chronicled steep decline in private sector unionization. American workers have also lost power in other ways. Those alleging employment discrimination have fared increasingly poorly in the courts. In recent years, judges have dismissed scores of cases in which workers presented evidence that supervisors referred to them using racial or gender slurs. In one federal district court, judges dismissed more than 80 percent of the race discrimination cases filed over a year. And when juries return verdicts in favor of employees, judges often second guess those verdicts, finding ways to nullify the jury's verdict and rule in favor of the employer. Most Americans assume that that an employee alleging workplace discrimination faces the same legal system as other litigants. After all, we do not usually think that legal rules vary depending upon the type of claim brought. The employment law scholars Sandra A. Sperino and Suja A. Thomas show in Unequal that our assumptions are wrong. Over the course of the last half century, employment discrimination claims have come to operate in a fundamentally different legal system than other claims. It is in many respects a parallel universe, one in which the legal system systematically favors employers over employees. A host of procedural, evidentiary, and substantive mechanisms serve as barriers for employees, making it extremely difficult for them to access the courts. Moreover, these mechanisms make it fairly easy for judges to dismiss a case prior to trial. Americans are unaware of how the system operates partly because they think that race and gender discrimination are in the process of fading away. But such discrimination still happens in the workplace, and workers now have little recourse to fight it legally. By tracing the modern history of employment discrimination, Sperino and Thomas provide an authoritative account of how our legal system evolved into an institution that is inherently biased against workers making rights claims.

View or download the free 2015 Online Supplement for this product. Changes in the area of employment discrimination law, since publication of earlier editions of this book, have refined many of the substantive doctrines and continued to clarify procedural issues. A number of relevant decisions have explored the scope of protection provided by the ADA, while others have focused on the extent to which Title VII proscribes sexually harassing behavior. The new Seventh Edition of Employment Discrimination Law: Cases and Materials includes updated note material to include analyses and recent studies of labor market discrimination as well as cover recent judicial developments and the following main decisions issued since the Sixth Edition was published in 2006: Ricci v. DeStefano (Sup. Ct. 2009) concerning the right of an employer to postpone promotions based upon test results having a disparate impact and Lewis v. City of Chicago (Sup. Ct. 2010) dealing with the timeliness of challenges to the use of previously administered test scores which have a disparate impact on protected groups. Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (Sup. Ct. 2007) pertaining to the timeliness of challenges to gender-based pay differentials and the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act reversing the impact of the prior Supreme Court decision. In re Union Pacific RR Employment Practices Litigation (8th Cir. 2007) regarding the duty of employers to cover the cost of prescription contraceptives under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act amendments. Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville (Sup. Ct. 2009) and Thompson v. North American Stainless (Sup. Ct. 2011) both dealing with the scope of the Title VII anti-etaliation proscription. This book also is available in a three-hole punched, alternative loose-leaf version printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper with wider margins and with the same pagination as the hardbound book.

"The U.S. civil court system consists of three levels: 1) District Courts ("Trial Courts"), 2) Circuit Courts of Appeal ("appellate courts") and 3) the Supreme Court (see Figure 1.1). The United States has a total of 94 districts, representing distinct geographic regions (see Table 1.1). The number of districts varies by state. For instance, some states have only one district (e.g., Arizona, Colorado, Delaware), while others have multiple districts, such as California, Florida, and Michigan (e.g., Southern District of California, Central District of California)"--