The document summarizes key aspects of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It provides examples of how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has enforced these protections. Specifically, it discusses a case where a temporary agency agreed to pay $650,000 to resolve a class action lawsuit alleging discrimination in hiring and firing practices. It also summarizes two cases where retailers (Walmart and Supercuts) were sued by the EEOC for refusing to accommodate employees' requests to not work on their Sabbath days, in violation of protections for religious discrimination.

1. 72 Introduction, Theories, and Legislation
Area Temps, a Northeast Ohio temporary agency, agreed to pay
$650,000 to resolve a class discrimination lawsuit filed by the
EEOC. The EEOC charged that the temporary agency
considered and assigned (or declined) job applicants by race,
sex, Hispanic national origin, and age. The EEOC also alleged
Area Temps unlawfully complied with discriminatory requests
made by its clients based on race, sex, national origin, and age,
and unlawfully fired two of its employees in retaliation for their
opposition to Area Temps' discriminatory practices and for one
employee's participation in the EEOC's investigation.
In addition to monetary relief, the three-year consent decree
settling the suit requires the company to post a notice of
resolution regarding this lawsuit that is visible to employees.
The company must also provide a notice-of-resolution letter to
all applicants, management and selecting officials, and outside
clients on the obligations of the company under federal
antidiscrimination laws, as well as Area Temps' commitment to
abide by such laws.
Certain employers are excluded from coverage under Title VII,
including private membership clubs, religious organizations,
schools, associations, or organizations hiring American Indians
on or near reservations. For those organizations operating solely
within the confines of the exclusion, certain types of
discrimination are not illegal.
Disparate treatment occurs when an applicant or employee is
treated differently because of membership in a protected class.
Refusing to hire Blacks as restaurant servers or men as child
care workers constitutes disparate treatment, also referred to as
intentional discrimination. Evidence of such treatment would
include statements by employers or written policies—items that
are often difficult to verify or obtain. Common stereotypes

2. about abilities, traits, or performance of people belonging to
certain groups may lead to disparate treatment; for example, the
stereotype that women have limited math skills could result in
women purposely not being assigned to jobs requiring math
skills. Assuming applicants who have Hispanic names will have
limited English skills and refusing to interview them is another
way that stereotypes could lead to disparate treatment.
Disparate or adverse impact occurs when an apparently neutral,
evenly applied job policy or employment practice has a negative
effect on the employment of people belonging to protected
classes. It is demonstrated by statistical evidence showing that
people in a protected class were disproportionately affected by a
particular "neutral" practice. This type of discrimination, also
referred to as unintentional discrimination, might occur through
educational requirements or height and weight restrictions that
may exclude large numbers of certain group
Chapter 3: Legislation 73
Evenly applied, neutral practices that disproportionately
exclude
members of certain groups should be carefully scrutinized.
Are the
requirements legitimate for successful job performance?
Are there no
other nondiscriminatory alternatives that would still allow
for successful
performance? Title VII does not require employers to hire,
promote, or
. retain people who do not meet job requirements. Instead,
Title VII
requires employers to pay careful attention to job requirements
and
employment decisions to ensure that members of certain groups
are
not excluded by factors that are not clearly related to successful
performance. From an employment perspective, constraining the

3. applicant pool through selection requirements that do not help
identify
those who would be better performers is ineffective, costly, and,
often, discriminatory.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Title VII
created the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which
began
operating on July 2, 1965. The EEOC's mission is to "promote
equality
of opportunity in the workplace and enforce federal laws
prohibiting
employment discrimination."9 During the first year of
operation, the
EEOC received 9,000 complaints—four times the number
expected, demonstrating the gravity and pervasiveness of
discrimination in the United States. A primary role of the EEOC
is investigating complaints of
discrimination, conciliating when complaints are deemed
meritorious, and litigating when efforts to resolve complaints
through conciliation are unsuccessful. Instead of litigating, the
EEOC may also issue complainants
a "Right-to-Sue-Notice," allowing them to file individual
actions in court
(without the EEOC's involvement), Although an average of
about 85,000 claims have been filed with the
EEOC for the past decade, relatively few claims result in
resolutions for
plaintiffs. As shown in Table 3.1, the percentage of all
cases ending
with merit resolutions was about 21% over the period.
These "merit
resolutions" include settlements, withdrawals with
benefits, and concilia-
tions; $319.4 million was recovered for affected parties in
2010. On the

4. other hand, about 60% of charges were deemed to have no
reasonable
cause. Despite media attention and managers' fears, EEOC
charges, liti-
gation, settlements, and damage awards are unlikely events.
Even so, the EEOC plays a vital role in enforcing various laws,
issuing guidelines to assist employers in interpreting and
complying with laws, and providing individuals with a voice in
employment-related treatment.
* http://vww.eeoc.gov/eeoc/index.cfm, accessed October 7,
2010.
Chapter 3: Legislation 75
As with many federal agencies, many of the EEOC's
resources are
allocated to helping organizations comply with the law, rather
than focused on penalizing them for violations. One of these
resources is EEOC guidelines issued to educate employers (and
thus prevent illegal actions). The EEOC defines harassment in
employment settings as "bothering, tormenting, troubling,
ridiculing, or coercing" a person because of race, color,
religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age, all of which
forms of harassment are increasing in frequency.10
Race and national origin. Under Title VII, it is illegal to
discriminate against someone because of his or her race, color,
birthplace, ancestry,
culture, or linguistic characteristics common to a particular
ethnic group.
Because of the extreme and pervasive discrimination
against Blacks in the
United States, they were the primary racial group for
whom the protec-
tions of Title VII were originally intended. Other racial
and ethnic groups,
including Latinos, Asian Americans, American Indians,

5. and Arab
Americans, have also benefited from the provisions of
Title VII. Recently,
discrimination on the basis of national origin has been on
the increase;
many complaints involve low-wage earners and
immigrants in the fishing,
poultry, and agricultural industries, many of whom have
limited English
proficiency and few other employment options. As
described in the
following case, the EEOC often targets multiple acts of
discrimination.
Albertsons Agrees to Pay $8.9 Million for Job Bias Based
on Race, Color,
National Origin, Retaliation11
EEOC Says Employees Subjected to Swastikas, Lynching
Drawings, Epithets
Albertsons, LLC, a national grocery chain, agreed to pay $8.9
million and furnish other relief to settle three employment
discrimination lawsuits filed by the EEOC. The EEOC had
charged Albertsons with race, color, and national origin
discrimination and retaliation at its Aurora, CO, distribution
center. The monetary relief will be distributed among 168
former and current employees. The first case was filed in 2006
and alleged a pattern or practice of workplace harassment and
discrimination based on race, color, and national origin.
According to the lawsuit, minority employees were repeatedly
subjected to derogatory
comments, name-calling, and graffiti. Moreover, the EEOC
alleged that, the
10Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Office of
Public Affairs. (1992). Issue Codes.
11 Adapted from EEOC press release at
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/12-15-09.cfm,

6. accessed October 3, 2010.
Page 76
offensive graffiti included racial and ethnic slurs, depictions of
lynchings, swastikas, and white supremacist and anti-immigrant
statements. Some of this graffiti remained for years until the
restroom was remodeled in 2005. The EEOC also charged that
minority employees were given harder work assignments and
were more frequently and severely disciplined than their white
coworkers. The EEOC charged that managers were aware of,
and even participated in, the harassment and discrimination.
In the second lawsuit, filed in 2008, the EEOC alleged a pattern
or practice of retaliation in which dozens of employees who had
complained about the discriminatory treatment and harassment
were subsequently given the harder job assignments, passed
over for promotion, and even fired as retaliation. The third case
alleged race discrimination on behalf of a single African
American employee at the distribution center who was
terminated.
EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru said, "Employers
simply cannot overlook or tolerate this kind of outrageous
discrimination and retaliation." EEOC Regional Attorney Mary
Jo O'Neill said, "The graffiti was particularly shocking.
Employers need to aggressively criticize such conduct, seek out
the culprits and take swift action." Besides the monetary relief,
Albertsons agreed to submit to four years of court-ordered
monitoring and to institute an extensive training program to
ensure that management is aware of and will comply with equal
employment opportunity laws in the future.
In addition to prohibiting the kind of egregious harassment just
described (disparate treatment), apparently neutral practices,
such as English-only rules, may be in violation of Title VII,
unless the employer has a business necessity for them. English-
only rules are allowable only when needed to ensure the safe or

7. efficient operation of a business and only when implemented for
nondiscriminatory reasons. In addition, employment decisions
may not be made based on an employee's foreign accent, unless
the accent seriously interferes with job performance.12
Sex. Under Title VII, it is illegal to discriminate against
someone because of his or her sex or gender in all employment-
related matters.13 Overt employment discrimination against
women was rampant at the time Title VII
''National Origin Discrimination,
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/nationalorigin.cfm, accessed
October 3, 2010.
13 See Chapter 9 for a discussion of the Ann Hopkins case, in
which the U.S. Supreme Court first specified that it was illegal
to discriminate on the basis of perceptions about how someone
of a particular sex should behave (gender).
Chapter 3: Legislation 77
was passed; some reports maintain that the inclusion of
prohibitions against sex discrimination in the act was a last-
ditch effort by conservative Southern legislators to ensure that
it did not pass. Other research contradicts this claim, noting that
feminists had been fighting for such legislation for a long time.
Regardless of different beliefs about why prohibitions against
sex discrimination were included in Title VII, it is clear that
some aspects of discrimination applied more to women than to
Black men, who obtained the right to vote (in theory, if not in
practice) before White women did.14 Despite persistent sex
discrimination, harassment, and sex-based pay differences, Title
VII has been very beneficial to working women in the United
States. Although men who experience sex discrimination are
also covered by Title VII, it is women who remain the primary
targets. In 2010, $129.3-million was recovered for plaintiffs, as

8. shown in Table 3.2.
Title VII has also been applied to sex-based discrimination
against men. One case against Hooters restaurant alleged such
discrimination, even though Hooters is known for scantily clad
female servers.15 In another case, Jillian's, a nationwide chain
of family dining/entertainment facilities with headquarters in
Louisville, Kentucky, agreed to settle a class action lawsuit in
which at least 100 men alleged sex discrimination. The EEOC
alleged that Jillian's maintained sex-segregated job
classifications and failed to hire and/or transfer men to more
lucrative server positions because they were men. Jillian's
agreed to pay $350,000 in damages to men in Indianapolis, to
hire and place employees at all its facilities without regard to
sex, to train its managers on Title VII's regulations against sex
discrimination, and to post nondiscrimination notices at all
facilities and on its employment applications.1
Along with prohibitions against sex discrimination in hiring,
firing, promotions, and other commonly recognized aspects of
employment, Title VII prohibits sex discrimination in the form
of pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment, discussed
later in the chapter. Its prohibition against gender
discrimination (discrimination due to failure to comply with
expected roles for men or women, as discussed further in
Chapter 9) has been supported by a Supreme Court ruling.17
Religion. Title VII provides people of different or no religious
beliefs with protection against employment-related
discrimination. Employers are
"
Chapter 3: Legislation 79
prohibited from treating applicants or employees more or less

9. favorably because of their religious beliefs or practices.
Employers are also required to make reasonable
accommodations for employees' sincerely held religious beliefs
or practices, with flexible scheduling, job reassignments, lateral
transfers, and other means that do not impose undue hardship.
Lawsuits filed in 2010 by the EEOC against Walmart and
Supercuts alleged that after years of accommodating employees'
requests not to work on their Sabbath, management began
refusing to do so. Statements from employees and the EEOC
emphasize the diversity-related contradictions associated with
the employers' actions.
Walmart Sued for Religious Discrimination18
After 15 Years Observing Sabbath, Employee Required to Work
Sundays
On October 1, 2010, the EEOC filed a federal lawsuit against
Walmart for disciplining and threatening to fire an assistant
manager at its Colville, WA, store when he refused to violate
his religious beliefs. Richard Nichols, a devout Mormon, began
working for Walmart in 1995, started as a manager at the
Colville store in 2002, and observes the Sabbath by doing no
work of any kind (including household chores or shopping).
From 1995 to 2009, Walmart accommodated his request for
leave on Sundays, but in the fall of 2009, the company revised
its scheduling system and refused to continue accommodating
Nichols.
"For the last 15 years, I have loved working for Walmart,"
Nichols said. "I enjoy what I do and the people I work with. But
this refusal to take into account my religious needs is causing
me a great amount of stress. I'm afraid I'll be fired for choosing
my religion over my work; it's not a choice I want to have to
make."
"Where there is a conflict between an employee's religious
beliefs and work rules, the law mandates that employers make a
sincere effort to accommodate those beliefs," said Luis Lucero,

10. director of the EEOC's Seattle Field Office. "Walmart's refusal
to explore any workable solutions with Nichols is not only
illegal but short-sighted. Why would anyone treat a long-time,
dedicated employee this way?"
18 Adapted from EEOC press release at
http://svww.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/10-l-10c.cfm,
accessed October 3, 2010.
80 Introduction, Theories, and Legislation
Supercuts Sued for Religious Discrimination19
Hair Salon Refused to Accommodate Stylist's Sabbath
On October 1, 2010, the EEOC filed a federal lawsuit charging
Supercuts hair salon with religious discrimination for requiring
a stylist employed at their Pleasant Hill, CA, salon to work on
her Sabbath and firing her when she refused to violate her
religious beliefs. Carolyn Sedar, a stylist and shift manager,
observes Sabbath and does not work on Sundays. According to
the lawsuit, Sedar began working for Supercuts in 1999 and
store managers accommodated her religious beliefs until
November 2008 when a new store manager scheduled Sedar for
a Sunday shift. Sedar submitted three written complaints to and
had several conversations with the store and district managers
informing them that she could not work on her Sabbath.
Supercuts refused to excuse Sedar from the Sunday schedule,
even after she gave officials a copy of the EEOC's guidance on
religious discrimination, and fired Sedar after she refused to
work two consecutive Sundays.
Sedar said, "the Bible says that I should not work on Sabbath

11. and I could not violate that tenet even though my beliefs cost
me a job that I loved." EEOC San Francisco District Director
Michael Baldonado noted that "Ms. Sedar worked for the
company for nine years under several store managers who
accommodated her Sabbath without incident. When a new
manager scheduled Ms. Sedar to work on Sundays, she made
every effort to inform Supercuts that its actions were unlawful.
Now they are facing a lawsuit."
According to EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney William
R. Tamayo, "many of these requests can be handled easily. For
example, Supercuts could have permitted Ms. Sedar to swap
shifts with "coworkers, as they had done already for almost a
decade. Supercuts could not show that excusing Sedar from
work on her Sabbath would impose an undue hardship."
Although these cases have not been resolved, a similar suit was
settled in August 2009 by the EEOC's Memphis District Office
against the parent company of Supercuts (doing business as
Smartstyle) for failing to accommodate an employee who
observed Sabbath on Sundays. In 2003, Super-cuts had settled
another lawsuit that alleged it had discriminated against a
19Adapted from EEOC press release at
hrtp^/www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/10-l-lOf.cfm,
accessed October 8, 2010.
Chapter 3: Legislation 81
White regional manager who refused to participate in
discrimination against Black employees. The company settled
the suit for $3.5 million and said it would train hundreds of
managers on nondiscriminatory practices, yet blatant
discrimination persisted.20
In both the Walmart and Supercuts religious discrimination
cases, the EEOC first attempted to reach a prelitigation
settlement and, when it was not reached, filed suit seeking back
pay and other monetary losses and compensatory and punitive

12. damages for appropriate injunctive relief to prevent future
discrimination. Along with avoiding discrimination and making
reasonable accommodations of employees' sincerely held
religious beliefs, the EEOC encourages employers to put in
place antiharassment policies that include religious harassment.
Title VII has been helpful, for example, to many Muslims who
faced overt discrimination and harassment after the terrorist
attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. As shown
in Table 3.2, in 2010, the EEOC received 3,790 charges of
religious discrimination, resolved 3,782 charges (including
some from previous years), and recovered $10.0 million in
monetary benefits for complainants and other aggrieved
parties.21 The EEOC has issued "Guidelines on Discrimination
Because of Religion" and "Guidelines on Religious Exercise and
Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace" that may help
employers to create a supportive climate for religious diversity.
Exceptions: Bona fide occupational qualifications and business
necessity. In a limited number of situations, discrimination on
the basis of sex, religion, and age is not illegal. Bona fide
occupational qualifications (BFOQs) refer to certain situations
in which employers may require that all employees hold a
certain characteristic. For sex as a BFOQ, for example, an
employer could legitimately require that women model evening
gowns, that a male be hired to play a leading man in a movie, or
that women work in dressing or changing rooms in a lingerie
shop. Age may be a BFOQ in certain circumstances when it is
"reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the business."
Mandatory retirement of pilots and age limits for public safety
officers are examples of the narrow legal use of age limits.
Religion could be a BFOQ for particular religious
organizations. An organization may also claim that a particular
practice resulting in disparate impact (but not disparate
treatment) is a "business necessity." For business necessity to
be a valid defense, the employer must

13. 20"Supercuts to Pay $3.5 Million for Race Bias and Train
Hundreds of Managers, in EEOC Settlement."
http://www.eecic.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/8-13-03.cfm,
accessed October 8, 2010.
21 "Religion-based Charges, 1997-2009."
hrtp://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/religion.cfm,
accessed January 12, 2011.
22
http://clinron4.nara.gov/textonly/WH/Nevv/html/19970819
-3275.html, accessed April 6, 2011.