Pregnancy Discrimination Act Essay

When there is any type of discrimination it will always take time for an act, opposing it, to have an effect and start to make a change. When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to set all of the slaves free there weren’t many people who where very happy about it; and it did not make all of the discrimination against African American’s go away. It took time and effort on both parts and there are still areas in our nation where we can still see discrimination, against African Americans, today. The same goes for the Title IX act. It took a while for women to break through and for it to have a lasting effect for women. But Title

For starters let us look at this situation from a political standpoint in favor of pro-choice advocates. In the infamous case of Roe v. Wade, Jane Roe’s two lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, “sought to challenge the legality of Texas’s antiabortion law” (Roe v. Wade). In any level of government,

Congress amended Title VII in 1978 by passing the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and made it clear that discrimination based on pregnancy is unlawful sex discrimination. This legislation reversed the Supreme Court's Gilbert decision in 1976. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 which overruled several Supreme Court decisions rendered in the 1980s that had made it more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in their employment discrimination suits and to recover fees and costs when they won their lawsuits (www.eeoc.gov). The amendment stated that parties can request jury trials and those successful plaintiffs can recover compensatory and punitive damages in employment discrimination cases. This amendment has

The addition of sexual orientation has gone before Congress many times but it has yet to be included as a protected class. There is so much controversy surrounding gay marriage right now that I believe it is only a matter of time before employment discrimination because of sexual orientation will be the reason for the Title VII will be amended once again. The most recent additions to this law have been discriminating based upon pregnancy, sex stereotyping, and sexual harassment. Title VII states that an employer can’t refuse to hire a woman based upon the fact that she is currently pregnant or because of any pregnancy-related conditions. To be safe and to avoid any litigation in the future, an employer should never ask an individual about their marital status or a woman if she is pregnant.

Over the past few decades, great strides have been made by women in the workplace. This increased number in women in the workplace does not mean equality however. Even with equal qualifications and achievements, women are still not given all the opportunities that men have. The chapter in the textbook, “Gender at Work”, shows us more of these inequalities in the workplace. Such inequalities cause gender segregation of jobs and can be linked with the pay inequality in the labor force. Even in jobs that are predominantly filled by women, men earn more than women. Women are often stereotyped as being family focused and not as able to travel, therefore they tend to get passed up for promotions (Garson p.353). This invisible barrier that keeps women from moving up the executive ladder is referred to as the “glass ceiling” (Baxter and Wright p. 346). Women also tend to do more domestic work, or unpaid labor and caregiving. This extra unpaid work is referred to as “the third shift” and is largely rested on the shoulders of women (Gersel p. 352). Consequently, this seems to be one of the biggest things holding women back from taking on jobs that are normally considered male

Arousing the Civil Rights Act instated in 1964, Judge Lee Rosenthal of Southern District of Texas ruled that Title VII forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, supplementing the traditional instated prohibition of prejudice based on one’s color, race, religion, sex, and national origin in the workplace. Concluding that biased notions towards one’s sexuality and transgender status are forms of discriminant towards one’s sex, Judge Rosenthal decreed the inclusion for protections of non-heteronormative individuals.

After she was fired, Leger filed a lawsuit alleging that HCS Staffing was in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act). After hearing both sides, a federal court ruled in favor

There’s a clause called the Hayden Clause that was added to the Equal Rights Amendment in hopes that it would ease the process of becoming accepted. The clause stated that: "Nothing in this Amendment will be construed to deprive persons of the female sex of any of the rights, benefits, and exemptions now conferred by law on persons of the female sex." Since people wanted full

Facts of the Case: LaNisa Allen appealed the original judgment in favor of Totes/Isotoner Corporation on the issue of whether the Ohio Fair Employment Practices Act, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, prohibits an employer from discriminating against a female employee because of or on the basis of lactation. Relevant law associated includes whether Allen established a prima facie case of “sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,” or whether she “was simply and plainly terminated as an employee at will for taking an unauthorized, extra break.” Allen’s original complaint was termination attributable to discrimination, based on pregnancy and related

One of the most infamous Supreme Court cases in history, Rowe v. Wade of 1973 struck down a law in Texas restricting abortion. Texas formerly had a law in place that deemed it a felony for a woman to have an abortion; the courts ruled that the state’s interest in protecting the health of a pregnant woman and the potential life needed to be balanced against a woman’s right to privacy. The Roe v. Wade decision is what began the national debate over the morality of abortion. Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp if 1971 is another case that led to the actions of the supreme court in the support of the WRM. Title VII prohibits discrimination by employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Supreme Court case Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp. is the case that marked the first sex discrimination case under Title VII. The Court unanimously ruled that employers could not refuse to hire women with 4-5 year old children when they also hiring men with children of the same age. Reed V. Reed on 1971 was a unanimous decision in which the Supreme Court struck down an Illinois law concerning sex discrimination within the appointment of administration over an estate. A couple that had separated lost their son who did not leave a will. The man and woman, Sally and Cecil Reed, were battling over control of their son’s estate. An Illinois law stated that "males must be preferred to

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) is an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The PDA was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 31, 1978 to prohibit workplace discrimination on the basic of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was established to prohibited employers from being discriminated on by basic of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin but not pregnancy. Therefore, in 1978, the PDA was amended to prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of pregnancy and related issues.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed by Congress in 1978 as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There are two Supreme Court cases that were influential in demonstrating a need for the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that excluding pregnancy related disabilities from disability insurance in California did not violate equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment of Title VII, as the list of exclusions also included conditions that affected both men and women . The ruling of Gedulig v. Aiello was that this exclusion did not count as sex discrimination even though the exclusion of pregnancy related disabilities is facially discriminatory to the female sex. The GE v. Gilbert case in 1976 involved

Prior to World War II, employers and the government held that there were jobs appropriate for women and jobs which were inappropriate because women were not capable of fulfilling the tasks involved in such work. As we

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that it is unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire, discharge or discriminate against an individual because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Under Title VII sex discrimination is not unlawful if BFOQ can be proven as necessary for that position.

Women today have progressed to unprecedented levels, however, in all the ways women have advanced, “There has been remarkably little change in the gender balance of some of the most common occupations for either women or men during the last forty years “(p. 5). There was a large decline in the 80’s in workplace segregation, but since then, gender integration in the workplace has been relatively stagnant. This is largely related to the gender stigmas attached to fields such as teachers or health care workers that are largely dominated by women. There is an undeniable wage penalty for working in predominately female occupations that also deters men from these fields. The Department of Labor suggests many possible policies to be made in order to tackle this issue if the goal of equal opportunity for women wishes to be