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Women's rights

November 19, 2012
Supreme Court to Take Up Supervisor Harassment Case
Guest Post
By Sarah Crawford, Director of Workplace Fairness, National Partnership for Women & Families

Later this term, the Supreme Court will decide the case of Vance v. Ball State, a case that will have critical implications for the ability of our nation’s civil rights laws to root out unlawful workplace harassment. At issue in the case is the meaning of “supervisor” and whether employers may be held vicariously liable for harassment committed by supervisors who have the authority to direct and oversee employees’ work, as compared to those who have the authority to hire or fire. The Court’s decision will have important ramifications for the ability of victims of supervisor harassment to hold their employers accountable.

With so much at stake, the National Partnership for Women & Families led a group of ten top civil and workers’ rights organizations in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in Vance that calls on the Court to reject an overly restrictive definition of supervisor that is limited to those with the authority to make “tangible” employment decisions like hiring and firing. Quite simply, this definition does not reflect the realities of the workplace or the Court’s previously demonstrated understanding of what it means to be a supervisor.

Petitioner Maetta Vance worked at Ball State University as a catering assistant for the university’s dining services department when she was harassed by an employee that she considered to be a supervisor with the authority to direct and oversee her work. Vance alleges that, as a result of the harassment and physical intimidation she suffered, she lived and worked in a constant state of fear. Despite her complaints to the university, the harassment persisted.

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Supreme Court, Women's rights, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, Equality and Liberty, Ball State University, EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Guest Post, Maetta Vance, Sarah Crawford, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Vance v. Ball State
November 6, 2012
The Long Struggle to Expand and Protect Voting Rights
by Jeremy Leaming

The evolution of the nation’s democratic process has been arduous, tragic and bloody. And the process which still excludes too many remains a work in progress.

It took a Civil War, constitutional amendments and eradication of Jim Crow for African Americans to be able to participate in democracy. But dogged bigots still worked on ways to keep blacks from the polls. The Voting Rights Act, enacted in 1965, was a step by the federal government to drag recalcitrant states into line and stop harassment and oppression of African Americans at the polls. We now have several states with long, tawdry histories of discriminating against minorities at the polls, fighting to gut a major enforcement provision of the VRA. (Some of those state officials, in Alabama, for instance argue that discrimination at the polls does not exist anymore and therefore Section 5 of the VRA needs to be dumped. Congress, however, has found ample evidence that discrimination against minorities at the polls is not a thing of the past.)

It wasn’t until 1920 when women gained the right to vote via a constitutional amendment. In summer 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified after a close vote in the Tennessee legislature. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of Sex,” it reads. And the ratification of the 19th Amendment didn’t happen overnight; it was nearly a 70-year work in progress.

Over at The Dish, Andrew Sullivan notes a “quick and comprehensive lesson” on voting rights, linking to a video, “Democracy Distilled: Examining the Evolution of our Nation’s Voting Rights.”

The video, less than 4 minutes, notes, “When our nation was founded, voting rights were anything but equal. The freedoms we have today represent two centuries of successes and failures made by individuals constantly battling to make their voices heard.” Watch it here, or below the jump.

The “battle” for voting rights though is one that we will likely drag on. The Supreme Court has given corporations greater power drown out individual voices and there remain too many state efforts to make voting difficult.

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Election law, Voting rights, Women's rights, Democracy and Voting, Equality and Liberty, 19th Amendment, evolution of voting rights, Florida, Justin Levitt, Ohio, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, voter suppression, Voting Rights Act of 1965
November 5, 2012
Cherished Rights Hang in the Balance: Why Makeup of Courts Matter
by Jeremy Leaming

As noted in a Nov. 2 piece for The Huffington Post by ACS President Caroline Fredrickson, the make-up of the nation’s top court rests on tenuous ground – with one more conservative justice helping its conservative bloc turn the clock back on longstanding precedent protecting an array of rights, such as reproductive rights.

Fredrickson notes, “As recently as 2007, the Court upheld burdensome restrictions on abortion rights in Gonzales v. Carhart,” and that a “more conservative Court “could easily further restrict women’s reproductive rights, chipping away at Roe v. Wade or undoing it altogether.” (Fredrickson’s post notes the recent ACS paper, “Courts Matter: Justice on the Line,” which provides numerous examples of Supreme Court precedent that could be fundamentally altered with the change in the make-up of the high court.)

Duke School of Law Professor Neil S. Siegel, also in a piece for The Huffington Post, zeroes in on the importance of the Supreme Court’s role in protecting or eviscerating reproductive rights. Siegel, also co-director of the Program in Public Law at Duke’s law school, writes how close the high court, in the past, has come to overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade. In the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy had narrowly joined the majority in upholding Roe. But since Casey, Siegel continues, Kennedy “has voted to uphold abortion-restrictive regulations that deny pregnant women the safest method of abortion in medical emergencies.”

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Supreme Court, Voting rights, Privacy rights, Reproductive freedom, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Women's rights, Democracy and Voting, Equality and Liberty, Caroline Fredrickson, Courts Matter: Justice on the Line, Liberty/Equality: The View from Roe's 40th and Lawrence's 10th Anniversaries, Neil Siegel
October 17, 2012
A World without ‘Roe’
by E. Sebastian Arduengo

A more conservative U.S. Supreme Court would likely result in the gutting of Roe v. Wade, which for close to 40 years has guaranteed women’s access to reproductive health care. A decision overturning Roe wouldn’t make abortion illegal nationwide, but would have the effect of putting the issue in the hands of state governments – a lot like the issue of same-sex marriage.

Anyone who’s been following news about what the states have been doing to limit access to abortion providers knows that this is disconcerting news for women.

In Mississippi over the summer, the state legislature passed a bill requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals that would have had the effect of ending abortion in the state, the implementation of which was stayed by a federal judge. In Louisiana, a law was passed making abortion a strict liability medical procedure, meaning that patients would be able to recover against abortion providers without any proof of fault or negligence. That law too, was held to be unconstitutional by a judge.

Many more states are itching for the day when the Supreme Court says that reproductive rights are no longer protected by the Constitution. The Center for Reproductive Rights, says there are at least five states that have so-called “trigger” laws that would automatically make abortion illegal without a post-Roe clash in the state legislature. Others would simply have their pre-Roe anti-abortion laws go into effect. Reproductive rights would be in immediate danger in about 30 states the second Roe is overturned.

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Supreme Court, Individual liberties, Privacy rights, Reproductive freedom, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Women's rights, Center for Reproductive Rights, Courts Matter: Justice on the Line, Roe v. Wade
October 1, 2012
‘Courts Matter’ Paper Details Impact Judges Have on Cherished Rights
by Jeremy Leaming

A longstanding meme is that conservatives are concerned about the makeup of the Supreme Court, while progressives, not so much. A paper released by ACS on the opening of the Court’s new term, spells out why progressives should be really concerned about the Supreme Court, if they are not already.

The paper, “Courts Matter: Justice on the Line,” notes the current high court is typically divided 5-4 along ideology on a host of matters that progressives should be concerned about, such as corporate funding of elections, abortion rights, voting rights, privacy rights and equality. The paper speculates on how a more conservative or progressive high court might address some of the nation’s most pressing legal concerns.

For example, the document says a “more conservative Supreme Court might uphold onerous restrictions on a woman’s right to choose and otherwise limit her reproductive freedom – and perhaps even overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.” There are two cases decided by a conservative Supreme Court that have already revealed a desire to limit, if not overturn, Roe.

The high court’s 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey created a new standard for deciding when limits on reproductive freedoms pass constitutional muster. For example, waiting periods, parental consent and informed consent are no limits on women’s freedom to a medical procedure. For that matter states have also mandated that physicians give women lectures on abortion or force them to under ultrasounds to view sonograms. And in a 2007 opinion, the Court upheld as constitutional a state law banning late-term abortions.

The advancement of marriage equality might also be slowed by a more conservative Supreme Court, the paper notes. In 2003, the high court by a 6-3 vote invalidated as unconstitutional a Texas law banning sodomy. The ACS paper maintains that today Lawrence v. Texas would likely be a 5-4 opinion.

Let’s note here too that early next year, Jan. 18-19, ACS will host, along with the UCLA School of Law, the Williams Institute, the Yale Information Society, and the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice, a conference focusing on the impact of Roe and Lawrence and contemplating the future of both equality and liberty concerns. See here for more information about the conference called “Liberty/Equality: The View from Roe’s 40th and Lawrence’s 10th Anniversaries.”

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Supreme Court, Other courts, LGBT issues, Privacy rights, Racial justice, Reproductive freedom, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Women's rights, Equality and Liberty, Courts Matter: Justice on the Line, Federal Courts, judicial vacanices, Liberty/Equality: The View from Roe's 40th and Lawrence's 10th Anniversaries, makeup of Supreme Court

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