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Disparate Treatment
Workplace discrimination obviously affects employees and employers, but its reverberations are much further reaching--it impacts income inequality, structural racism, attitudes toward race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and our perceptions of justice. We will study a subset of the federal laws governing employment discrimination, focusing on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Other relevant measures include the Civil War Reconstruction statutes, especially 42 U.S.C. §1981; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”); and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”).
The definition of discrimination under Title VII is neither intuitive nor inevitable--indeed, what it means to discriminate has been contested by social movements, courts, businesses, and politicians. We will consider whether the idea of discrimination written into Title VII is deficient--and in what ways. We will begin with the most litigated Title VII claim--disparate treatment.
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