Employee Discrimination And Retaliation

CASE ANALYSIS

Burlington Northern and Sante Fe Railway Company v. Sheila White case

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Introduction

In US, Burlington Northern and Sante Fe Railway Company v. Sheila White case was the case about the sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The case addresses the issue related to the employee discrimination and retaliation. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act states that employees should be protected from the discrimination as well as also from the retaliation (Riley & Scarborough, 2006). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 elucidates that the employers are not allowed to discriminate against their employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The act also includes that employers are further prohibited from discriminating against employees who have opposed incidents of discrimination in violation of the statute.

Issue

The issue in this case was to resolve the disagreement of the Supreme Court granted for certiorari. For this, the court had to decide whether anti-retaliation provision of Title VII should interdict only to those employer actions and the harms that are related to employment or the workplace (Riley & Scarborough, 2006). The Court also agreed to characterize how harmful an act of retaliatory discrimination must be to fall within the provision's scope.

Case Analysis

Sheila White was working with Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company. She was in the Maintenance of Way Department in Tennessee. She was the only woman in that department. White was originally hired as a track laborer in the company (Newman, 2007). The profile of her job was removing and replacing track components, transporting track material, cutting brush and clearing letter and cargo spillage from the right-of-way. Because of her experience in operating forklifts and a vacancy in a forklift position, Marvin Brown, asked her to operate in a forklift which was a clean and less arduous job. White was not ethically as well as legally treated well by her employers.

When White joined her forkfit position, she made a formal complaint to Burlington regarding her immediate supervisor, Bill Joiner. She complained that her supervisor had made insult and inappropriate remarks in front of her male colleagues. The company head ordered Mr. Joiner to attend sexual-harassment training sessions for having good code of conduct in the office premises. In the mean time, company relieved White from her forkfit duties and assigned her previous track laborer duties (Riley & Scarborough, 2006). She was informed from Mr. Brown that her profile has been changed because of the complaint of her co-workers, according to them the forklift job should be given to a senior person who has the experience because the forklift job was cleaner and less arduous.

Sheila White made a retaliation charge as per the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in October, 1997. She claimed that the reason of her reassignment to her previous duties of track laborer was an unlawful retaliation. The roots of this reassignment came from the complaint which she made against Bill Joiner in September of 1997. While filing the charge, she kept doing her job for Burlington Northern until December of 1997, when the charge on her immediate supervisor was suspended and she was considered insubordinate. With this, she was given the pay for thirty seven days of her suspension (Newman, 2007).

After this, Sheila White filed a new suit against Burlington Northern in the United States District Court under anti-retaliation provision. In this, she claimed that her discrimination reports on gender, resulted into change of her duties and suspension without any pay. The jury agreed and compensated her with $43,500 against this discrimination. Later, this verdict was appealed to the Sixth Circuit and at the beginning, a committee of the Sixth Panel ruled against the previous judgment which was given in the favor of Sheila White but the Court of Appeals again abandoned this decision and supported the judgment in favor of Sheila White. This resulted into a split in the sixth circuit on the correct standard for claims of retaliation under Title VII.

Further, the conflict between judges in the Sixth circuit led to a bigger split of the other circuits too. Now, the issue was the consideration of anti-retaliation provision of Title VII in tandem with the anti-discrimination provision. The Fifth and Eighth circuit along with the majority of the judges of the Sixth Circuit employed a requirement of strict relation between the retaliation and employment whereas the Seventh, Ninth and D.C. Circuit complained that this would discourage an employee to file a charge of discrimination.

In order to settle these conflicts, the Supreme Court of the United States granted a certiorari in Burlington. In this case, Justice Breyar started to analyze the language of both, the provisions of anti retaliation and anti discrimination. Breyar explained that there was no limiting language in anti-retaliation provision rather it was used to express the distinct purposes to both the provisions and said that White was given the pay of suspension period.

Justice Alito disagreed with the interpretation of the majority on the language of Title VII and supported the integration of the provisions of anti retaliation and anti discrimination. Finally, the court broadened the scope of the anti-retaliation provision of the Title VII along with increasing the rights to the employees. Thus, it was a victory of civil rights (Newman, 2007).

Legal Analysis

The court ruled the decision in the favor of White. The EEOC is the administrative unit of government charged with enforcing anti-discrimination laws which includes Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Laws. Any employee working in an organization can file discrimination claims under Title VII, with the EEOC and exhaust the administrative remedies before they can file suit in court.

White filed three charges of discrimination with the EEOC (Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). These charges were

the reassignment of her job duties on the basis of gender basis and complaint on the basis of gender

the second claim was for retaliation for what she characterized as activities done by Mr. Brown

the third and final complaint was based upon the White's indefinite suspension

After claiming to the court, White brought her claims to the federal court, and filed case against Burlington under the provision of anti-realization act of Title VII. After this, the jury agreed and awarded White $43,500 in compensation. Along with the support, the Court added that the retaliation protections could not be secured by focusing solely upon harm that occurs in the workplace because an employer can retaliate against an employee outside of the workplace also (Riley & Scarborough, 2006). The Supreme Court further held that the purposes of Title VII's substantive and anti-retaliation provisions are different. The Court noted that its decision in Burlington Industries, Inc. did not deal with situations outside the scope of what an employer is liable for in dealing with the actions of its supervisors (Newman, 2007).

Ethical Analysis

The decision taken by the court was ethically correct. The court favored White and supported her claims. The anti-retaliation provision states that it is unlawful practice for an employer to discriminate against any of his or her employees or applicants for employment. It can be stated that the employers should be cautious about what they write and say to an employee. It is important to analyze that what is overheard by other employees, especially with e-mail correspondence (Riley & Scarborough, 2006).

The employers should consider an investigation committee (internal or external) to deal with allegations of misconduct and harassment. With this legal and procedural standpoint, the companies can learn what the root causes of recurring issues are. This investigation also shows that employers are serious when it comes to dealing with issues in the workplace (Riley & Scarborough, 2006). The ethics explains that if the company or the organization realizes that there are some errors or mistakes in the handling of the decisions of employment then they can take steps to rectify the situation before it gets out of hand.

Conclusion

Thus it can be concluded that the organizations should adopt legal as well as ethical code of behavior in the organization. They should not misbehave with each other. The employer should not allow any kind of discrimination in the organization. Employers should be courteous by nature and should show appreciation and respect for employees for the good work that they do. In many organization employees are less likely to file an EEOC charge or to make claim when they feel they are happy and themselves as a important part of the company (Burlington Northern v. White, 2006). As per the case, it shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to refuse, to hire or to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Newman, 2007).

References

Burlington Northern v. White (2006). US Supreme Court adopts "could well dissuade a reasonable worker" definition of retaliation. Retrieved September 11, 2008 from http://www.lawmemo.com/docs/us/white/

Newman, M. (2007). Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. V. White: The Scope of Retaliatory Actions and a Legal Catch-22. Journal from Harvard Law and Gender.

Riley, N.M & Scarborough LLP. (November, 2006). Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway v. White: A Guide through the Uncharted Waters of Adverse Employment Actions. Journal from World Services Group

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