The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the gender discrimination case that could decide the future of class actions, and the justices appeared to divide largely along gender lines, suggesting a possible win for Wal-Mart, Bloomberg reports.
Although the issue on appeal centered around the nature of the class action, “the disagreement among the justices focused as much on the substance of the federal job-discrimination laws as on the requirements for class actions,” according to Bloomberg.
Justice Anthony Kennedy questioned the nature of the alleged unlawful policy, saying, “Your complaint faces in two directions. You said this is a culture where Arkansas knows, the headquarters knows, everything that's going on. Then in the next breath, you say, well, now these supervisors have too much discretion. It seems to me there's an inconsistency there …”
Last week, ACS held a National Press Club briefing on Wal-Mart v. Dukes, which was broadcast live on C-SPAN3. Video of the event is available here, and short downloadable podcast interviews of Columbus School of Law Professor Suzette Malveaux and Outten & Golden partner Adam Klein are available here and here. During the event, ACS released an advance copy Malveaux's forthcoming article, "Class Action at a Crossroads: An Answer to Wal-Mart v. Dukes,” which will be published in ACS's official journal, the Harvard Law & Policy Review. In addition, a number of legal experts have and continue to provide analysis and insight about the case for ACSblog, available here, here, here, here and here.
ACS also recently held an event, “Federal Courts, Inc?”, which addressed the extent to which the Supreme Court and all federal courts are demonstrating a pro-corporate agenda. The event included a roundtable of legal experts and a keynote speech by former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, in which he suggested that progressives have been far too passive in the debate over the meaning and reach of the U.S. Constitution, calling it a "wildly progressive document," and urging progressives to stop being silent about its richness and vitality. Video highlights of both the speech and the roundtable are available here.
All of ACS’s efforts are designed to ensure that the ACS network is fully engaged in addressing the potential impact of a negative Supreme Court decision in Walmart. Such a decision could drastically alter the access to the federal courts that millions of Americans have and could potentially shift the balance even further toward corporations.
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