Court clarifies Civil Rights Act

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday strengthened the enforcement of civil rights laws in the workplace, ruling that it is illegal for employers to punish workers who file discrimination complaints by shifting them to a less appealing job or changing their work hours.

The 9-0 ruling upheld a $43,000 jury verdict in favor of a female railroad worker who was removed from her job as a forklift operator and reassigned to more arduous work on a track-repair crew after she complained of sexual harassment.

In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress made it illegal for employers to retaliate against employees who complain of discrimination. But until Thursday, the Supreme Court had never defined what was meant by retaliation.

With surprising unanimity, the justices rejected the arguments of business lawyers who argued that “minor changes in work assignments” should not be deemed illegal simply because an employee has complained of discrimination.

Instead, they set a rule that bars all but trivial actions taken against a complaining employee.

For example, a “petty slight” – such as a supervisor failing to invite an aggrieved employee to lunch – does not amount to illegal retaliation, the court said. However, if the worker is excluded from weekly planning meetings, he or she may well be able to win a separate discrimination charge against the employer.

If the employer’s action against an employee could have “dissuaded a reasonable worker” from complaining in the first place, then it is illegal, the court said.

Legal experts predicted a further increase in retaliation complaints, which already account for about one in four job discrimination cases.

Thursday’s decision arose from a case of sex discrimination, but it applies also to claims of discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, age or disability.

The court’s ruling came in the case of Sheila White, who in the summer of 1997 was the only woman on a Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway maintenance crew in Memphis, Tenn. She had experience operating a forklift and was given that job soon after she arrived. But after a few months, she told her supervisor that her foreman was making sexist comments and off-color jokes – along with remarks, echoed by other workers, that a woman did not belong there.

The foreman was suspended for 10 days, but the supervisor also removed White from the forklift and reassigned her to a track crew at the same pay. She contacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, contending that the reassignment was unlawful gender discrimination and retaliation for her original complaint.

Later, after a dispute with another foreman, White was suspended without pay for a 37-day period that included the Christmas season. That also led to an EEOC complaint.

White filed a grievance through her union. After a hearing, the company agreed that the suspension was a mistake, and she was reinstated with back pay.

In addition to her EEOC complaints, White sued the company, charging that the job change and the suspension amounted to retaliation under the Civil Rights Act. A jury ruled against her on her complaint of sex discrimination, but it ordered the railroad to pay her $43,000 in compensatory damages for having retaliated against her after she complained.