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Katie Lynn Hogan Week 3 Case Questions EEOC v. Dial Corp and Lewis v. Heartland Inns of America Grantham University

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WEEK3CASEQUESTIONS EEOC v. Dial Corp The legal issue within the case involves Title VII of the civil rights act of 1964. EEOC v. Dial Corp would be based of sex discrimination on behalf of 54 female women who had applied for work but were not hired. The court decided that Dial had failed to demonstrate that the WTS was a necessity of the business and that its other safety masseurs could not produce the same results. The district court concluded that the findings in its disparate impact analysis were not clearly erroneous, and they see legal error in its conclusions on liability. The EEOC was never required to show the absence of a nondiscriminatory alternative. The evidence that was used for the strength test disadvantaged women would be that forty six percent of the new hired women in the three years before the WTS was introduced while after the test was implemented the number of women hired dropped to fifteen percent. Another great argument made within this case was three years before Dial has implemented the WTS the women injured rate had been lower than that of the male workers. The EEOC content validity study for employment screening should consist of data showing that the content of the selection procedure is representative of important aspects of performance on the job for which the candidates are to be evaluated. The EEOC guidelines establish that criterion validity can be shown by empirical data demonstrating that the selection produced is predictive of or significantly correlated with important elements of the job performance. Dial presented a physiology expert that testified the WTS was highly representative of the actions required by the job to show content validity. Dial argued that the WTS was criterion valid because both overall injuries and strength related injuries decreased dramatically following the implementation of the WTS to show criterion validity.

WEEK3CASEQUESTIONS EEOC presented an expert in industrial organization and his testimony stated that the crucial aspect of the WTS is more difficult that the sausage making jobs themselves. Presenting the facts that the average applicant would need to preform four times as many lifts as current employees. At this point Dial needs to reevaluate there hiring process. The implementation of there WTS has been found to maintain discriminatory practices. Coming up with a test that better aligns with the business necessity and show either content or criterion validity. “This evidence included the fact that the percentage of women who passed the WTS declined with each implementation of the test. In addition, women and men received similar comments on their test forms, but only the males received employment offers (Danaher, 2007)”. Following the trial, the court ruled on an additional claim that the WTS had a disparate impact on female applicants. I agree with the courts findings that Dial had not shown a business necessity for using the WTS and, therefore, that the WTS had an unlawful disparate impact on females.

WEEK3CASEQUESTIONS Lewis v. Heartland Inns of America The legal issues within the Lewis v. Heartland Inns of America cases would be based on sex stereotypes in the workplace. Brenna Lewis began working for Heartland in July of 2005 as a shift C at the font desk. At the end of December 2006 Lewis transferred permanently into another hotel for the A shift. Jennifer Headington nor Lori Stifel did a formal interview with Lewis. After seeing Lewis Cullinan told Stifel she was not sure Lewis was a “good fit” for the front desk. The court decided that the comment about the “Midwestern girl look” or the context in which it was made prove that a discriminatory attitude against women motivated the hotel’s dismissal of the plaintiff. The court provided four main reasons for this outcome and noted that both male and female employees were held to the same business dress code policies.

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“First, the phrase “Midwestern girl look” does not, in itself, prove discriminatory bias against women generally or a subset of women on the part of the director of operations.

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Second, there was an “insufficient link” between the comment and the plaintiff’s termination (comment was made three weeks before decision to terminate).

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Third, the “negative interaction” between the director of operations and the plaintiff was more significant.

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Fourth, the plaintiff made no attempt to compare her treatment to similarly situated male employees. “Mere Existence’’ of Sexual Stereotyping Not Enough to Support Title VII Claim.” 2009)”.

Lewis did produce evidence that Jennifer Headington commented about the appearance of female staff members, believing that front desk workers should be pretty. At one point she even refused to hire a female applicant who was not attractive enough and the installation of cameras at the fount desk. The supreme court has stated that the critical issue in a sex discrimination case is whether members of one sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment which members of the other sex are exposed.

A sex plus case is a less obvious form of facially discriminatory policy or practice that occurs when neutral criteria are applied to some protected class groups but not others. “Sex-plus theory posits that "[i]t is impermissible to treat men characterized by some additional characteristic more or less favorably than women with the same added characteristic (Kolinsky, 2011)".

The Director of Operations Headington refers to the plaintiff as lacking a “Midwestern girl look” or as being “tomboyish.” These characterizations are much more closely tied to sex-stereotyping than would be a general desire to hire attractive employees. The boundaries found within the sexstereotyping theory are difficult to define, but this does seem to be a case where an employee who was doing her job well lost her job because her employer thought that she was insufficiently feminine.

WEEK3CASEQUESTIONS The general standards of an appropriate appearance or attire are called for within the customer service industry. They do need to be fundamentally the same for male and female employees.

WEEK3CASEQUESTIONS References Danaher, M. G. (2007). Strength Test Falls. HR Magazine, 52(2), 115–116. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=bth&AN=24036133&site=ehostlive&authtype=uid&user=grantham&password=research

Case of First Impression: “Mere Existence’’ of Sexual Stereotyping Not Enough to Support Title VII Claim.” (2009). Fair Employment Practices Guidelines, (644), 4–5. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=bth&AN=35876032&site=ehostlive&authtype=uid&user=grantham&password=research

Kolinsky, H. M. (2011). Taking Away an Employer’s Free Pass: Making the Case for a More Sophisticated Sex-Plus Analysis in Employment Discrimination Cases. Vermont Law Review, 36(2), 327–353. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=71799020&site=ehostlive&authtype=uid&user=grantham&password=research...