Employment Discrimination

Saks Fifth Avenue is being sued by the EEOC for Title VII violation because the EEOC claims that they discriminated against a transgender employee.

In a blog that I read on employment legal issues, “The Connecticut Employment Law Blog,” the author talked about a Supreme Court 2013 ruling in the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar case that increased the burden for the plaintiff in a retaliation case,

Before the court’s decision, employees who claimed they were retaliated against, needed to show only that the retaliatory motive was a “substantial or motivating fact” affecting their termination.  The Supreme Court ruled in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar heightened that standard, requiring employees to show that an employer would not have taken an adverse employment action “but for” a retaliatory motive.

Earlier I was reading in Chron about the Saks Fifth Avenue case where the plaintiff added “retaliation” to her law suit against Saks,

On July 2, 2012, Jamal asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for an investigation of alleged sex discrimination. She was fired 10 days later, over an allegedly inappropriate conversation with another employee, documents state.

Claiming that she engaged in no such conversation, Jamal amended her complaint to the commission to include retaliation.

So I wonder how the Supreme Court ruling will affect her case, does she have enough evidence to prove that “an employer would not have taken an adverse employment action “but for” a retaliatory motive,” I would imagine that first she has to disprove the alleged conversation.

And on Dr. Jillian T. Weiss blog “Transgender Workplace Law & Diversity” she writes that a federal court in North Carolina just ruled Title VII does cover gender identity,

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina has ruled that a trans employee is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In Lewis v. High Point Regional Health System, the Court rejected the employer's argument that the lawsuit was barred by previous cases holding there is no cause of action under Title VII for discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Court recognized that sexual orientation is different from gender identity.

If you remember Saks Fifth Avenue is claiming that Title VII does not cover gender identity, so this will probably shoot holes in their defense.