Supreme Court Decision on Law School's Anti-Bias Policy May Have Limited Impact

The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 28, 2010

By Peter Schmidt
Washington
A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court held Monday that a California public law school did not violate the First Amendment in denying official recognition to a Christian student group that effectively excluded homosexual students from membership based on their beliefs and behaviors. But the parties involved in the case, as well as experts on student organizations, disagree over whether many colleges have policies similar enough to the one at issue in the case to be affected by the decision.
In its 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the University of California's Hastings College of the Law acted reasonably, and in a viewpoint-neutral manner, in refusing to officially recognize and give funds to a campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society because the group refused to abide by the school's requirement that student groups open their membership to all.

Full Story: http://chronicle.com/article/Supreme-Court-Decision-on-Law/66077/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Center for Worklife Law Issues Report on Family Responsibilities Discrimination

Family Responsibilities Discrimination: Litigation Update 2010

According to the Center for Worklife Law, UC Hastings College of Law, the number of Family Responsibilities Discrimination (FRD) cases filed has increased 400% in the last decade, and the average verdict now tops $500,000. The Center defines FRD as:

Family Responsibilities Discrimination (FRD) is employment discrimination
against workers based on their family caregiving responsibilities. Pregnant
women, mothers and fathers of young children, and employees with aging
parents or sick spouses or partners may encounter FRD. They may be rejected
for hire, passed over for promotion, demoted, harassed, or terminated --
despite good performance -- simply because their employers make personnel
decisions based on stereotypical notions of how they will or should act
given their family responsibilities.

According to the report by Cynthia Thomas Calvert, companies do not yet understand their responsibilities or the liabilities caused by FRD. Pregnancy discrimination, taking family leave to care for an ill parent, age-old stereotypes about pregnant employees' ability to perform are examples of family responsibilities discrimination documented in this report. The report also provides data for employers, lawyers and policymakers about current trends in family responsibilities litigation. Among the data listed is that cases are rising in every state, in every industry and at every level in organizations. New supervisors are often the perpetrators of bias, and women who have a second child are discriminated against as are employees taking time off from work to care for a sick parent.

To read the entire report, go to: http://www.worklifelaw.org/pubs/FRDupdate.pdf

Go to the Center for Worklife Law's website at: http://www.worklifelaw.org/

To view the Q and A for employers on FRD: http://www.worklifelaw.org/ForEmployers.html

Gaining the Competitive Edge: The Economics of Retaining Women

Worklife Law: A Center of UC Hastings College of Law
The Center for WorkLife Law (WorkLife Law or WLL) is a:

nonprofit research and advocacy group with a unique "six stakeholder" model
that reflects our belief that many different stakeholders are ready, willing,
and able to play a role in sparking social and organizational change around
work/life issues. WorkLife Law works with employees, employers, plaintiffs'
employment lawyers, management-side employment lawyers, unions, and public
policymakers, to educate each group about the prevalence of family
responsibilities discrimination, and to develop effective measures to eliminate
FRD. WLL also works with social scientists to spark interdisciplinary studies of
bias against caregivers, and works extensively with the press.
WorkLife Law
is housed at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

Among its publications is "Gaining the Competitive Edge: The Economics of Retaining Women." On this page, the center notes that attracting and retaining women faculty will only occur if colleges and universities address the "chilly" climate issues and in so addressing these issues, institutions of higher education can be more cost-effective, especially in a time of declining resources and the high cost of attrition:

The High Costs of Attrition. The costs associated with unwanted attrition among faculty — male as well as female — are high. Click on each cost below to learn more:
High Costs of Start-Up Packages
Lost Grants
Reduced Faculty Productivity Due to Time Spent on Search Committees
How to Steal the Best Talent. Top-tier universities and colleges increasingly find themselves competing with lower ranked schools—and losing—as lower-ranked institutions use dual-career hiring policies to attract the most desirable candidates. Click here to learn more.
Half of the Current Tenured Faculty Will Consider Retirement within 10 Years. Currently, 50.5% of tenured faculty members are at least 55 years old.[9] A key question is whether the workforce hired to replace retiring faculty will reproduce the disproportionately low percentage of women and people of color in tenure-track positions.
Increasing Legal Liability for Employment Discrimination Claims. Employment discrimination cases are increasing, along with steep attorney’s fees, litigation expenses, and vulnerability to the loss of grant funding. Click here to learn more.

See full commentary: http://www.worklifelaw.org/EconomicsOfRetainingWomen.html