Search

The article explores the relationship of the same-sex Bona fide occupational qualifications (BOFQ) defense and its possible application in the educational sphere. The topics discussed include employment discrimination and systemic disparate treatment cases, establishment of a standalone role-modeling BFOQ, and the supreme court case Dothard v. Rawlinson. Also discussed is U.S. Ninth Circuit Court's decision in Fernandez v. Wynn Oil Company.

In Lapides v. Board of Regents of the University of Georgia, the Supreme Court held that when a state actor voluntarily removes a case from state to federal court, that action waives the state's sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. The United States Courts of Appeals have split, however, on the precise contours and reach of that decision--and their split disadvantages the average citizen seeking redress against the state (most often state employees seeking generally-available redress under antidiscrimination or civil rights or labor laws). This Note examines the history of the Eleventh Amendment, the reasoning in Lapides, and the arguments made by the Courts of Appeals themselves in arguing that only a blanket waiver-by-removal rule effectively furthers the Supreme Court's voluntary invocation jurisprudence, and protects the average citizen from the asymmetric advantages provided to states who, as employers, should be held to the same standards as the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the reported relationships between race, employment, and crime in America as of June 2014, focusing on disparate impact discrimination based on criminal convictions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the legal aspects of employee screening are addressed, along with criminal arrest records and the nation's Americans with Disabilities Act. Felony convictions and several legal cases are also examined.

The use of comparator groups has to date been central to establishing a breach of s 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The New Zealand courts' approach to the formulation of comparator groups admits a lack of a clear methodology. The author argues that, in the absence of a framework guiding the formulation of the comparator, the methodology permits arbitrary and inconsistent decision-making. The flexibility of the approach risks premature exclusion of claims in reliance on intuitive rather than analytical reasoning, limiting the transformative potential of non-discrimination provisions and offending against the proper construction of s 19. Of particular concern is the involvement of matters of justification at the comparator stage. The judgments of the High Court and Court of Appeal in B v Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development and G B as Executor of the Estate of B of Whangarei v the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development respectively are emblematic of these concerns. Recent developments at the Court of Appeal in Ministry of Health v Atkinson and Child Poverty Action Group Inc v Attorney-General have provided some guidance, but have not gone far enough. The author recommends that the courts defer to the claimant's choice of comparator, and decouple the identification of differential treatment from questions of causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since handing down Washington v. Davis and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development, the United States Supreme Court has significantly curtailed the ability of plaintiffs to bring disparate impact claims under the Equal Protection Clause. Many academics continue to talk about the standards governing intent and disparate impact. Some recent scholarship recognizes that reformers on the ground have shifted away from equality-based claims altogether. This Article contends that civil rights advocates replaced the old equal protection framework some time ago and that they did so deliberately and with great success. It expands upon and refines the strategy shift some scholars have identified, with a particular focus on racial inequality, the foundation on which equal protection rests. It does so by focusing on three particularly timely reform movements: indigent defense reform, the fight to end the school-to-prison pipeline, and challenges to immigration-related laws. The Article uses these various reform movements to identify and analyze the true breadth of the new racial justice reformers have wrought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses legal aspects of religious discrimination in the U.S. after September 11, 2001 Terrorist attacks in the U.S. The topics discussed include U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, the functions of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and U.S. Supreme Court case Trans World Airlines Inc. v. Hardison.

The article offers information on efforts of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enact a new enforcement guidance regulating employers' use of criminal history information under the provisions of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It discusses the judicial decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in cases including Griggs v. Duke Power Co. and Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio regarding employment discrimination under the Title VII.

Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds into separate risk pools based on the differences in their risk profiles, first, so that different premiums can be charged to the different groups based on their differing risks and, second, to incentivize risk reduction by insureds. This is why we let insurers discriminate. There are limits, however, to the types of discrimination that are permissible for insurers. But what exactly are those limits and how are they justified? To answer these questions, this Article (a) articulates the leading fairness and efficiency arguments for and against limiting insurers' ability to discriminate in their underwriting; (b) uses those arguments to identify a set of predictions as to what one would expect state antidiscrimination laws to look like; and (c) evaluates some of those predictions against a unique hand-collected dataset consisting of the laws regulating insurer risk classification in all fifty-one U.S. jurisdictions. Among our findings is that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, state insurance antidiscrimination laws vary a great deal: in substance and in the intensity of regulation, across lines of insurance, across policyholder characteristics, and across states. The Article also finds that, contrary to our own predictions, a surprising number of jurisdictions do not have any laws restricting insurers' ability to discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, or religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contests about pregnancy discrimination during the 1970s, feminists, the business lobby, and anti-abortion activists disputed the meaning of sex equality. Existing scholarship has yet to take account of the dynamic interaction between these groups. This Article fills that void by analyzing the legal and political debates that resulted in the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 ("PDA"). The Article reveals how competing ideas about the family, wage work, and reproductive choice shaped the evolution of pregnancy discrimination law. Feminists, the business lobby, and anti-abortion activists drew upon two legal discourses in debating pregnancy discrimination: liberal individualism and "neomaternalism." Each of these discourses, in turn, encompassed dual valences. Liberal individualist discourse challenged sex-role stereotypes, but it also reinforced the idea that private reproductive choice rendered reproduction a private economic responsibility. Neomaternalism leveraged the social value of motherhood to gain entitlements for pregnant women, but also reinforced the normative primacy of motherhood. Feminists' legal goals and rhetorical frames at times overlapped with and at other times diverged from those of both the business lobby and anti-abortion activists. Feminists used liberal individualist principles of equal treatment and neutrality to challenge gender stereotypes that states and employers used to justify the exclusion of pregnancy from public and private insurance schemes. The business lobby used liberal individualist principles of private choice to advance a market libertarian interpretation of sex equality that justified the denial of pregnancy-related benefits. In opposition to the business lobby, both feminists and anti-abortion activists forged a fragile alliance. Both groups made neomaternal arguments in advocating the PDA. While feminists emphasized the value of pregnancy as a form of socially productive labor, however, anti-abortion activists stressed the need to protect pregnant women and fetuses. The points of confluence and departure between the arguments of feminists, business opponents, and anti-abortion allies both advanced sex equality under the law and also limited its scope. Feminist advocates for the PDA synthesized liberal individualist and neomaternal discourses to pursue the elimination of sex-role stereotypes under the law as well as collective societal responsibility for the costs of reproduction. While the PDA took a significant step toward the realization of this vision, it remains illusory. Our legal culture evolved to embrace not only the valences of liberal individualist and maternalist ideologies that advance sex equality but also those valences that reinforce gender inequality. Market libertarianism continues to privatize the costs of reproduction, while maternalism reinforces the sexual division of reproductive labor. Ultimately, this Article points to the persistence of tensions in the definition of sex equality and the consequent need for new legal paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, Kristine Bartlett, an aged care worker, and the Service and Food Workers Union took a claim for equal pay for work of equal value under New Zealand's Equal Pay Act 1972. They claimed that Kristine's skills, responsibility, service and conditions of work were undervalued because caring for the elderly is done almost entirely by women. The last pay equity case, for clerical workers in 1986, was rejected, making Bartlett vs Terranova an important test of New Zealand law. In August 2013 the Employment Court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs on questions of law, allowing gender neutral job comparisons with work done by males outside the female-dominated care sector. This article aims to make the arguments in this case -- on interpreting the text and historic purpose of the Act, consistency with human rights legislation and compliance with international conventions -- available to a wider audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act ( GINA) of 2008 was the first US legislation to address genetic discrimination. We sought to assess understanding of GINA among individuals affected by the autosomal dominant condition, Huntington disease ( HD). We conducted a cross-sectional survey of individuals with varying risk of HD to assess their familiarity with GINA. As a control, individuals were surveyed about their familiarity with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA). Those who reported familiarity with GINA were asked about their knowledge of specific provisions of the legislation. The survey was offered to 776 participants and completed by 410 (response rate 53%). Respondents across all groups were less familiar with GINA (41% slightly, somewhat, or very familiar) than with HIPAA (65%; p < 0.0001). Of individuals with or at risk for HD who reported some familiarity with GINA, less than half correctly identified GINA's protections, and less than 15% correctly identified its limitations. Thus, among individuals affected by HD, familiarity with and knowledge of GINA are low. The effectiveness of the legislation may be limited by this lack of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on need to balance the business interests of employers with the privacy interests of employees. It informs about conflict of interest of employers and employees regarding the off-duty use of social media. It further discusses the lifestyle discrimination statutes which protect employees' use of facebook, social media and off-duty premises. It depicts that lifestyle discrimination statutes were designed to protect smokers from discrimination at work.

Almost everyone in the United States is likely to experience or have experienced racial emotion in the workplace. One person feels uncomfortable making conversation with her coworkers of a different race for fear that she will use the wrong name or say something that is perceived as biased or offensive; another is anxious that his colleague will judge him as less intelligent than the whites on his team. One feels anger at the telling or emailing of a racial joke; another feels frustrated when a colleague raises concerns about bias during a post interview debriefing. These emotions--and the behaviors that give rise to them and respond to them--are sometimes difficult to describe. We lack a language of racial emotion in the workplace, in no small part because many of us (especially whites) prefer not to see it. But racial emotion does exist, and we ignore it to the detriment not only of our individual relationships, but also of our visions and efforts for equality. Drawing on a rich body of social science research on emotion and interracial interaction, this Article pushes beyond the recent cognitive turn in understanding discrimination to expose racial emotion as a source of discrimination at work. It uncovers the ways that the law (through Title VII of the Civil Rights Act) and organizations currently close racial emotion out of antidiscrimination discourse and close space for developing positive racial emotion at work. By theorizing racial emotion and the relationships that result as a potential source of discrimination, the Article positions the law to better see and address workplace discrimination and to set normative and regulatory grounding for organizations to open space and develop conditions for positive racial emotion and interracial relationships at work. To this end, the Article proposes several specific doctrinal changes in the law of individual disparate treatment, hostile work environment, and retaliation. It resists, however, calls for greater policing of all racial behavior through these laws, urging instead legal regulation of discrimination at the systemic level as a way of directing organizational attention toward developing work conditions that will foster conversation and learning across difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-two states have implemented state Employment Nondiscrimination Acts (ENDAs) making sexual orientation discrimination illegal, and Congress has repeatedly considered a federal ENDA. However, we know very little about the impact of existing ENDAs and the likely impact of future ENDAs. I describe the implementation of ENDAs and highlight their shortcomings relative to federal employment nondiscrimination law. Despite their shortcomings, I show that state ENDAs decrease wage differentials by roughly 20 % for behaviorally gay men. ENDAs appear to reduce this wage differential by reducing the portion of wage differentials typically associated with discrimination. These results inform a contemporary policy debate over the necessity and impact of expanded protection from discrimination for gay men. ( JEL J1, J3, J7) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the substantive and procedural framework in reference to the case of McDonnell Douglas. Topics discussed include decision and progeny of the case, discrimination law and legal framework of the case related to McDonnell Douglas. It also discusses various non-discriminatory reasons for the actions of rebutting the presumptions of discrimination.

The article focuses on the influential court cases that have shaped immigration law in the U.S., which includes Chae Chan Ping v. United States, Fong Yue Ting v. United States, and Lee Kum Hoy v. Murff. Topics include the U.S. Congress' plenary power to discriminate, the permissibility of racial discrimination in immigration law, and constitutional law interpretation in the U.S.

The article discusses the effect that the Supreme Court's decision in the case Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes will have on plaintiffs and its consequences on employment discrimination claims. It analyses the denial of class certification in the case and its impact on future plaintiffs seeking Title VII claims. It also looks at workplace discrimination and formulation of anti-discrimination policies and diversity initiatives in organizations.

The article offers information on the challenges for employers in application of disparate impact claims with respect to the use of criminal background checks for the African-American and Hispanic applicants. It informs that the revised guidelines for use of criminal background checks by employers involved in hiring was issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). It mentions that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discriminatory treatment by employers.

The article addresses the issues focusing on the privileges of human resource (HR) or employment audits conducted by an employer. It explores three evidentiary privileges including attorney-client privilege, work-product doctrine, and self-evaluation privilege and informs that be protected from disclosure. It discusses common forms various HR audits including Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audits, pay equity audits, and wage and hour classification audits.

The article offers information on the scope and implementation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) that was signed into law on October 13, 1994. It informs that goals of the USERRA is to protect the employment and reemployment rights for military reservists and prohibits the discrimination in employment in military service under the issued regulations by the Department of Labor (DOL) and Office of Personnel Management of the U.S.

Back in 1985, when knowledge of HIV began to spread, governments reacted by passing immigration laws to restrict the entry of HIV positive individuals. These laws required such individuals to either declare their HIV status or undergo mandatory HIV testing to secure entry. As justification for these initiatives, many countries claimed to be preserving the public health and their domestic economy. The United States, China, and Russia are three countries that have had, or still have, some form of HIV immigration restrictions. Initially, it may seem logical that preventing HIV positive individuals from entering a country will cut down on the spread of HIV and save the economy from health care costs. Nevertheless, an analysis of the HIV travel restrictions of these three countries will show that the public health and economic reasoning behind such laws is flawed because HIV is not spread by casual contact and because economic goals can be accomplished with less restrictive means. Moreover, this article will further reveal that HIV travel restrictions contribute to several health concerns and create issues with confidentially and stigmatization. In the end, a comparative analysis of these three countries, with specific attention paid to their successes and failures, reveals that the best system is one that works on both an international and domestic level. On the international level, border testing must be voluntary, confidential, and informed. It should also utilize pre and post test counseling, and not be used to restrict entry. On the domestic level, individual countries need to educate the public and create programs to address high-risk groups responsible for the rapid spread of HIV. In doing so, society will find not only that it is more effectively protecting itself from the spread of HIV, but also that it is protecting the HIV community from the stigma and discrimination that contributed to the rapid spread of HIV in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the contributions of poet and civil right activist Pauli Murray to American intersections and antidiscrimination law. The author mentions that Murray has written an article in 1947 in which she highlighted the name Jane Crow as representation of the experiences of African American women who have been discriminated due to racism and sexism. The author states that Murray was able to reveal the significance of imagination to argument and legal theory.

The article focuses on retaliatory disclosure through the public identification of a complainant. Topics include the use of public identification as an adverse action to avoid litigation, employment discrimination under the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, and retaliatory jurisprudence. Information is provided on the U.S. Supreme Court case Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway v. White.

The article explores several issues related to the housing rights of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Topics discussed include challenges for the anti-immigrant housing ordinances, prevailing advantages and disadvantages of the U.S. Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and discrimination against undocumented immigrants. It also discusses how loopholes in the preemption doctrine can be solved.

The article focuses on the role of force-feeding of young girls, known as leblouh or gavage in the modern Mauritania community. It informs that Mauritanian government has failed to provide legal protection for women and girls due to corrupt practices and traditional religious views. It analyzes international and domestic law based upon Shari'a Law and proposes laws regarding for protection of women's rights against discrimination.

The article focuses on the U.S. court case Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which dealt with the issue of transportation inequality and the disproportionate funding practice of metropolitan transportation agencies. Information is provided on funding allocation practices and the discriminatory patterns in transportation in the U.S.

Over the last thirty years, many countries have passed some form of regulation to promote diversity in the workplace. The evolution of these legal and regulatory developments reveals a landscape filled with varied and multidimensional approaches to a common imperative. This article will survey a broad spectrum of regional approaches to global workplace diversity initiatives, focusing on the cultural and legal definitions of protected categories, advances in positive discrimination legislation, and the possible tensions between the promise and the reality of diversity regulation. In the past several years, different regions of the world have experienced unique successes and challenges in achieving workplace diversity. While the United States has embraced diversity initiatives as a whole, the European Union has pioneered efforts to achieve gender parity in corporate management, and countries in Asia have set progressive quotas to increase the representation of persons with disabilities in the workplace. From recruitment and retention to promotion and wage setting, multinational organizations, no matter where they are headquartered, must meet the legal challenges posed by both domestic and international antidiscrimination legislation. This article will address the collision of international privacy regulation and the demands of equal opportunity laws, particularly in the development of strategies to collect and report employee diversity statistics. This comprehensive survey will conclude with a discussion of recent trends in global diversity awareness, such as an increased focus on pay equity legislation and the impact of the global recession on cross-border diversity initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the disabled community and the implications of future relationship to disability. The current decisions related to disability decision, proposed rules related to antidiscrimination law and the issues related to prenatal testing, disability insurance and driver's license are discussed. The need of reframing legislation and the different forms of social insurance are also discussed.

The article offers information regarding immigration federalism jurisprudence. It presents a court case landmark case of Arizona vs. U.S. in which Arizona was alleged with discriminatory policing, unlawful harassment, detentions and arrest. It discusses a changing nature of immigration enforcement laws and static legal regime governing enforcement.

American civil rights regulation is generally understood as relying on private enforcement in courts rather than imposing positive duties on state actors to further equity goals. This Article argues that this dominant conception of American civil rights regulation is incomplete. American civil rights regulation also contains a set of "equality directives," whose emergence and reach in recent years have gone unrecognized in the commentary. These federal-level equality directives use administrative tools of conditioned spending, policymaking, and oversight powerfully to promote substantive inclusion with regard to race, ethnicity, language, and disability. These directives move beyond the constraints of the standard private attorney general regime of antidiscrimination law. They engage broader tools of state power, just as recent Supreme Court decisions have constrained private enforcement. They require states to take proactive, front-end, affirmative measures, rather than relying on backward-looking, individually driven complaints. And these directives move beyond a narrow focus on individual bias to address current, structural barriers to equality. As a result, these directives are profoundly transforming the operation and design of programs at the state and local levels. They are engaging both traditional civil rights groups and community-based groups in innovative and promising new forms of advocacy and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the federal anti-discrimination laws in the U.S. and highlights barriers to anti-discrimination claiming system including the minimum number of employees' threshold, the administrative exhaustion requirement, and the statute of limitation. It suggests reforms for anti-discrimination claiming system including giving all employees access to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and allowing individual claims a minimum two-year statute of limitation.

The article focuses on Native American Indian law and tribal sovereignty. Topics include racial exclusion and discrimination of Native Americans, the evolution of tribal law throughout American history, and white nationalist movements in the U.S. Information is provided on regional secessionism and de facto geographical segregation.

The purpose of this article is to argue in favor of a private employer's right to discriminate amongst job applicants on any basis he chooses, and this certainly includes unlawful characteristics such as race, sex, national origin, sexual preference, religion, etc. John Locke and many after him have argued that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property or the pursuit of happiness. In this view, law should be confined to protecting these rights and be limited to prohibiting other people from transgressing those rights. The law should not hinder an employer's ability to discriminate, any more than it should compel people to marry against their wishes. These laws generally emerge from a moral perspective that people think should be imposed on everyone else. But those who don't welcome those morals are in effect being coerced to abide by them against their will; this is unethical. Finally, it will be argued that the free market has mechanisms by which discrimination will, be rendered powerless to harm its victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intractable problems, ones that defy solution because of conflicting lines of force, almost always require an outside catalyst for any movement toward an answer. This Essay explores intractability through two parallel historical moments of conflict: debate over slavery in ante-bellum America and debate over aliens in current America. Severe discrimination (based on difference, racial prejudice, communal identity formation, and larger psychological needs) deprives these disadvantaged groups of human rights and the protection of law. Nineteenth-century slavery and twenty-first century illegal immigration also share another quality. Both stimulate virulent forms of rhetorical excess that endanger the body politic and threaten the social fabric of an increasingly divided United States. The connection of law and literature offers a catalyst, an opportunity for a change in perspective through the power of fiction. As Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, forced recognitions of a common humanity against slavery, so Henry Roth s classic immigrant novel, Call It Sleep, indicates some of what is currently needed now. The synergy between legal and literary forms of address encourages a deeper realization, and that realization, in turn, raises a question about intractable problems in general. Can the rule of law, when law itself is questioned, respond through its equal partner, the right to free expression? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

. This article explores the evolving relationship between the concept of discrimination in international labour law and the socio-economic phenomenon of inequality at work. While non-discrimination was initially understood as a fairly limited legal principle mandating equal treatment for similarly situated individuals, it subsequently expanded to address indirect discrimination resulting from apparently neutral rules, standards and practices at work. It has expanded further to take on group-based patterns of inequality at work related to the structural constraints of the market, the family and community life, ultimately resulting in convergence between anti-discrimination law and legal initiatives to reduce class-based socioeconomic inequality and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The N-Word at Work examines the misinterpretation of language in employment discrimination cases. There is a widening gap between the use and meaning of words in modern American culture and courts' treatment of those words. This is particularly true of derogatory slurs and phrases, but is equally true for discriminatory language in general. This Article argues for a context-driven theory of linguistic meaning that comports with the purposes of Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes but also re-injects a sense of reality into the consideration of discriminatory language. Both the legal literature and judicial system have largely ignored this problem of language in discrimination cases. Perhaps sensing an emerging problem in the lower courts, in its 2006 decision in Ash v. Tyson, the Supreme Court devoted a single, vague sentence to the meaning of language in discrimination cases. Nonetheless, the problem persists among appellate and district courts alike. In late 2010, for example, a federal district court in Philadelphia addressed the issue head-on in a case involving a white employee who was terminated for using "the N-word" and claimed in his reverse-race discrimination case that had he been African American and used the word, he would not have been disciplined. Like its predecessors, the court approached the problem in a formalistic way that resulted in a context-blind approach to language with unsatisfactory results. This Article calls attention to the issue by examining the uses and meanings of discriminatory language in modern culture and advocates a theory of meaning that relies on the context in which language is used; the identity of the user; and the social, historical, and cultural framework in which the language developed. The Article highlights the mistreatment of language by trial and appellate courts and tracks the troubling history of Ash, which was finally resolved in December 2011 after two trials, a trip to the Supreme Court, and four reviews by the Eleventh Circuit. Finally, the Article suggests solutions to this seemingly intractable problem, including the need for (1) robust guidance from the Supreme Court on the purposes of anti-discrimination laws and the non-literal applications of those laws that make flexible, context-driven considerations of discriminatory language both possible and preferable; and (2) extra-legal expert testimony akin to social framework evidence that could translate the cultural realities of language for courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of a civil society and social systems for protection of different groups is directly related to well functioning political and economic systems. If the level of economic development or political stability is not continuous the implementation of antidiscrimination laws would most likely be at a very low level. In this case development of social rights along with implementation of antidiscrimination rights may be marginalized due to three factors: lack of cooperation among political and economic spheres, lack of knowledge about antidiscrimination laws and absence of political will for adoption and implementation of antidiscrimination laws. Therefore, we focus on the examination of specific issues concerning the three aforementioned factors primarily focusing on EU and divergence in the level of political and economic development among the member states.We will argue that antidiscrimination laws are not welcome in new member states, especially since they increase political and economic costs for the governments of respective countries. Level of political development has much to do with the acceptance and inclusion of AD laws in the decision making process. Economic development has much to do with social and living standards within a country which is directly related to the general perception of the population on AD laws. Therefore, one could say that implementation of AD laws heavily depends on the preparedness of people, economic and political system and their will to cope with costs and benefits of implementing those laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers U.S. and U.S. state immigration laws. Varying interpretations by U.S. appellate courts and the Supreme Court of the constitutionality of local and state laws intended to identify and prosecute illegal aliens are discussed. A means of adjudicating conflicts of federal and state and local laws is proposed in which traditional areas of state concern such as traffic law enforcement would not be subject to U.S. law if those laws contained strict provisions to prevent ethnic discrimination.

An essay is presented on strict administrative enforcement of the U.S. Voting Rights Act (VRA). Topics include voting discrimination in covered jurisdictions, preclearance of voters in selected jurisdictions, and voting discrimination against voters registered under certain party affiliations. Information is provided on Section 5 of the VRA.

The article focuses on the source of international antidiscrimination theory, the International Labor Organization, and informs that its principles can guide antidiscrimination laws in the U.S. It informs that unwillingness to utilize international sources is not an indication of hostility or lack of interest in international jurisprudence.

The article focuses on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's decision in Farrakhan v. Gregoire, wherein action for violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was involved. It highlights the disenfranchisement laws related to felons and biasness among dogmatists in criminal justice system. It examines challenges related to section 2 of the VRA and the adoption of evidentiary standard by court for the assessment of felon disenfranchisement laws.

I argue that the interpretation of Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms expressed by the Supreme Court in R v. Kapp is not entirely satisfactory. While the Court assumes that Sections 15(1) and 15(2) work together to combat discrimination, I show that many affirmative actions programs might be discriminatory within the meaning of Section 15(1). Moreover, I argue that the conflicts are internal to the concept of substantive equality itself. They partly reproduce the tensions between a politics of recognition and a politics of distribution. I suggest that such conflicts must be resolved in accordance with the principle of proportionality. Finally, I suggest that programs designed to ameliorate the conditions of Aboriginal people might find better ground in the concept of "aboriginal rights." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen important developments in the antidiscrimination case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee on Social Rights. While the latter has always been a privileged European forum for discrimination monitoring and, when applicable, for discrimination-based collective complaints (with a third of its decisions to date raising discrimination issues), the former has also developed an interesting albeit more marginal antidiscrimination case law and has issued a series of crucial decisions in the last five years or so. The purpose of this Article is to assess and compare the take of the two leading human rights bodies of the Council of Europe and their complementary and mutually reinforcing approaches, by situating them within the broader context of substantive changes in antidiscrimination law in the European Union. The two European institutions' respective case law is analyzed with a special emphasis on their conceptions of discrimination, their tests and reasoning, and in particular by reference to their case law on disability and the education rights of Roma children. One of the major developments to be discussed is the emergence and consolidation of a collective conception of discrimination by both bodies that is unprecedented in Europe, especially through their case law on indirect and structural discrimination and on enforcing positive duties and in particular positive action. While there are still important differences between the two bodies' approaches, their growing body of reference jurisprudence shows interesting signs of convergence and cross-fertilization. As a matter of fact, the enhanced coordination between the ECtHR's and the ECSR's approaches to non-discrimination has become legally necessary since the entry into force of Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights and the extension of the material scope of the ECHR non-discrimination principle to include all the rights entailed in the European Social Charter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past fifteen years, EU equality law has expanded to provide some protection from discrimination related to gender identity and sexual orientation. In the light of subsequent legislation and case-law, this Article examines the meaning of equality that is being elaborated with respect to these grounds. A range of interpretations can be applied to the idea of equality. Some entail little challenge to the general social order, in particular where equality is understood to mean formal equal treatment of individuals in comparable situations. In contrast, more radical readings of equality pose a challenge to established social conventions around gender or the family. This Article explores the role of courts (in particular) in determining which concept of equality should be applied. In the context of this analysis, a comparison is made with law in the United States, and the response of courts and legislators there to sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent evolution of European Union equality law, and the equality law of single European countries, is marked by the increased attention given to the procedural and institutional preconditions for the effective protection against discrimination. In this context, the creation of public bodies specially tasked with the promotion of equal treatment (equality institutions), which used to be a specific feature of only some European countries, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as some non-European countries such as the United States, is now common all over Europe. The immediate reason for this development is that equality institutions have been imposed on all EU Member States by means of a series of EU directives in the early years of this century. From a comparative law perspective, we can observe here an interesting example of legal transfer which leaves much room for bricolage at the national level, and has given rise to a hybrid legal regime which combines legal rights with softer mechanisms of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its application to cases involving alleged workplace discrimination involving members of white supremacist groups in America as of January 2012. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and religious-based workplace discrimination claims are also addressed. Several legal cases are also examined, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit case Cloutier v. Costco Wholesale Corp.