The Role of Workplace and Legal Context in Employment Discrimination Claims

University Of Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

Civil rights laws prohibit employers from discriminating against employees based on protected social categories, such as race, sex, and disability, as well as newer protected categories that emerge over time. The effectiveness of policies adding a new protected category will depend on the actions of employees, employers, and enforcement agencies. Employees gain the right to file discrimination claims when they believe they have experienced discrimination, but not all individuals are equally likely to view their workplace grievances as discrimination or to file a formal charge. Individuals must choose to invoke the law, and those choices will both reflect and shape cultural understandings of the law. From the enforcement agency perspective, handling of cases will also reflect understandings of the law, and legal rulings will develop the body of law and influence employer actions. The interactions of employees and enforcement agencies in the enforcement process may result in different understandings of the law being accepted, modified, or rejected as a new body of law develops, which will in turn influence the social impact of law. To achieve the equity goals of civil rights laws, it is important to understand these interactions, including how the workplace context and public policies influence which claims are seen as having merit. This knowledge could lead to more effective enforcement of civil rights law by providing a guide for compliance evaluations, a factual basis for refinements of agency practices and legal guidance, and a tool to educate employers on how to avoid discriminatory practices. The project draws upon confidential data on more than 9,000 charges of employment discrimination filed by employees with local, state, or federal agencies, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. This project analyzes the development of a new protected category in federal civil rights law related to a recent expansion in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) interpretation of sex discrimination to broaden claims related to gender-stereotyping and other sex-based actions. The empirical analysis involves a two-pronged project that is focused on employees and on the handling of charges at the EEOC. First, the researchers will engage in a qualitative analysis of the narratives filed by parties charging employment discrimination, to explore variation across individual characteristics, workplace characteristics, and legal context in the issues alleged by employees. A qualitative analysis of the discrimination charge narratives will also help to identify why the EEOC might initially classify a charge as more or less meritorious as it processes the charge. Second, the researchers will statistically analyze how the EEOC processes discrimination charges and whether workplace characteristics, state-level laws, and the sociopolitical environment affect whether a charge is found to have merit. A quantitative analysis will allow the use of all charges to identify the effect of workplace and policy context on the EEOC's contribution to this new body of law. The project findings could be used to inform the training of attorneys and human resources professionals to better recognize viable claims of discrimination and to adopt efforts to prevent discrimination. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.